


Angelfire

by SeekingIdlewild



Series: Hymns for Lost Angels [6]
Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, M/M, Pre-Slash, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-20 07:37:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3642090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeekingIdlewild/pseuds/SeekingIdlewild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rush's abduction has left Young broken and devastated, but Destiny doesn't give him much time to grieve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Solace

_Starlight or star-fighter_  
_Are you ready to go now_  
_Are you dying to wonder_  
_Singin'_  
_Angel light or my angelfire_  
_Are you ready to beat me_  
_Are you trying to free me_  
_Singin' oh_  


“Angelfire” by Gin Wigmore

 

* * *

 

Greer wasn’t sure when comforting bereaved superior officers had become a standard part of his duties. Sitting useless and silent next to a man who looked about ready to shake out of his skin with grief wasn’t exactly part of his skill set. Not that he begrudged any of the time he’d spent providing moral support to Scott since Chloe was taken - that’s just what you did for your friend. And he hadn’t argued with TJ when she’d asked him to look in on the colonel this evening. God knew he owed Young more than he could ever repay, and if there was any way he could help him now, he was all for that. But Greer thought of himself as a protector, not a nurturer. Give him an enemy to fight and he knew just what to do. Give him the slumped form of a colonel who had clearly been drinking and oh fuck, _crying_ for hours, and he didn’t have a fucking clue.

Young was hunched over on one of the couches in his quarters, clutching a bottle to his chest like it was a lifeline and staring at the opposite wall with a look that said pain was his entire being. His eyes were red and puffy, but he seemed all cried out now. That was a relief, at least. Greer didn’t know what he’d do with a weeping commander. It was hard enough to take a seat on the coffee table and meet that hollow stare with a steady, compelling gaze.

 _Come back from wherever you’re wandering, Colonel_ , he thought, chilled by that vacant yet tortured expression. _Chasing ghosts never did anyone any good._

Young’s eyes focused on Greer’s face and his brows drew together in confusion. “Sergeant?” he said thickly.

“Knew you were in there somewhere, sir,” Greer answered quietly.

“Shit.” Young rubbed at his blotchy face with one hand, and then he glanced down at the bottle still held tightly in the other. “I don’t think this stuff is working.”

Greer wasn’t sure he agreed. Young’s speech wasn’t exactly slurred, but he didn’t sound quite like himself. Didn’t look much like himself either. This human wreck wasn’t the same man he’d been serving with for the better part of his SGC career. “I guess it’s the sorta thing that creeps up on you,” he suggested.

Young snorted and shook his head. He held out the bottle toward Greer, and Greer accepted it willingly enough. He didn’t drink much usually - he prefered to stay sharp and ready for trouble at all times - but he took a swig anyway out of solidarity. Drinking alone was shit, especially when you were  in mourning. He understood that.

“I’m not drunk,” Young sighed, and maybe he was right about that after all. His eyes had sharpened, and his movements had none of the sluggishness that Greer associated with inebriation. And he should know, he thought grimly. He’d seen enough of that as a kid.

“No, sir,” Greer said, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“TJ sent you,” It wasn’t even a question.

Greer shrugged. “I would’ve come anyway,” he said, and recognized it as the truth as soon as the words were out. Sure, this was uncomfortable as hell, but it was supposed to be. No point in being strong if everything in life was easy.

Young acknowledged that with a weary little smile - the kind that conveyed gratitude without any accompanying pleasure - and closed his eyes briefly. “I know this might seem… excessive,” he murmured, bringing up a hand to shield his face as if he was suddenly embarrassed by the depth of suffering he was betraying. And yeah, maybe it was a little more intense than Greer had been expecting. Greer had seen Young lose a lot of men, and it never got any easier. If anything, it just wore the colonel down that little bit more every time it happened. But he’d never seen him like this. Young wasn’t just sad, or angry, or guilty. Greer would have understood those emotions. That’s what losing a friend felt like. But the colonel looked… _lost_. Yes, that was it. The colonel looked completely lost, like a little kid discovering for the first time that death was a permanent thing.

But no one was dead, Greer reminded himself. At least, not that he knew of. “You know, sir,” he ventured, “I’ve always reckoned Rush was pretty good at taking care of himself. He isn’t as puny as he looks.”

Young huffed and let his hand drop. “No,” he agreed, and Greer was pleased to see that the misery in his eyes had grown less stark. It wasn’t clear whether this was because he had actually been heartened by Greer’s comment, or whether he was just starting to get a grip on himself.

“Never seen anything move as fast as he did on that desert planet,” Greer added.

“So you told me.”

“He could’ve completely disarmed me if he’d wanted to. I didn’t have a prayer of getting off a shot, fast as he was moving.”

“Uh huh.”

“So I’m thinking those aliens will have their hands full with him,” Greer continued. “By now, they might even regret kidnapping him.”

Young’s lips twitched into another grim smile, but he shook his head. “I can’t count on that. He’s not exactly at his best right now.”

That was fair enough. Brain damage probably wasn’t ideal no matter who or what you were. Still, this was Rush they were talking about. Wasn’t brain damaged for him pretty much the same as normal for everyone else?

“Chloe said he was getting better.”

“He was,” Young admitted. “He heals quickly.”

“So he might get out of this. He might be okay.”

“I have to hope so,” Young said, bowing his head. “He might escape. Or he might be rescued. He’s got friends in high places and he seems to think they might help him in a pinch. I’d like to think that’s what will happen. But either way, I don’t expect I’ll ever see him again.”

Greer rubbed at his buzzed hair and grunted thoughtfully. He didn’t quite know how to tackle all that at once. It was hardly news that Young was going to miss Rush, but the way he said it, with that ache in his voice, was telling. He wasn’t usually so forthright about his emotions.

As for the rest… “I’m wondering what kind of ‘high places’ a person has to be in to pull off a rescue like that way out here,” Greer commented.

There was a long, reluctant pause, and then Young glanced up. As their eyes met, Greer suddenly felt glued to the spot by the force of that gaze. For a moment, all he could see was golden irises, and all he could feel was the pressure of a huge weight on his chest and the heat of a wildfire radiating from every wall and licking up from the deck plating under his boots. He sucked in a sharp breath, but before he had time to react further, Young’s eyes had gone back to their usual uncertain shade of hazel, and he was staring at Greer in mild surprise.

“Sergeant?” Young asked.

“Yes, sir?” Greer said as his pulse began to slow back down to normal. What the _hell_ had just happened?

“You okay?”

“Fine,” Greer muttered. He had not just imagined that. That had _happened_. What the _fuck_?

Young still looked slightly befuddled. He blinked a few times, as he was aware that his eyes were doing some funky shit, and then he frowned. “You believe in God, right?”

Now Greer was more bewildered than ever. Hadn’t they just been talking about Rush? How did they go from that to religion? But then Rush’s voice came back to him, tight and resolute, as he confronted Greer under the glare of a punishing sun. _‘Do you have faith, Sergeant?’_

Rush’s hair had changed color, just like Young’s eyes. There had been that moment on the desert planet when Greer had been completely disoriented, caught between fascination and disbelief as he watched something that shouldn’t even be possible. But Greer knew how to trust the evidence of his own eyes. He knew what he’d seen, both then and now.

Shit. He’d known for months that Rush wasn’t entirely human, but _Young_? He wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years. On the other hand, it explained a lot about Rush and Young’s relationship. It would be hard to find two men in the entire universe less likely to get along, and yet in spite of all their differences, they had been tight. If they were the only two members of another species on a ship full of humans, that might be why.

Greer realized that Young was still waiting for an answer to his question. He cleared his throat and kept his voice free of his tumultuous emotions as he replied, “You know I do, sir.”

“What about angels?”

Angels. _Angels_? He thought back to Sunday mornings sitting in church beside his mama, singing songs about the heavenly host out of dusty hymnals. Did he believe in angels? Truth be told, it had never really occurred to him _not_ to believe in them. His Sunday school teachers had said that everyone had a guardian angel, and sometimes he still thought that might be true. He'd definitely survived a few things he probably shouldn't have, and he'd rather chalk that up to angels than dumb luck. But it wasn't like the subject had come up much in conversation since he was a little boy.

Angels. Jesus.

"I guess so," he said, scrubbing a hand over his head meditatively. Then he grunted as he considered the implication of Young's question. "Are you telling me that Rush might get rescued by angels," he asked bluntly, "or are you telling me that Rush _is_ an angel?"

Young let out a hollow laugh, as if he'd only just realized what a bizarre turn this conversation had taken. "How about both?" he asked, with a look in his eyes that said, _Definitely both._

Well, fuck. That was… Greer didn't even know how to begin to process that. If it was true - and he couldn't think of a single damn reason why Young would lie about it - then angels weren't _quite_ what he had been imagining as a kid. Hell, he didn't even like Rush, and he sure as hell didn't trust him. There wasn't anything particularly holy about him. He was just a sneaky, annoying, smartass man...

… who could move at the speed of sound. Who had somehow managed to locate and rescue Lieutenant Scott in the middle of a desert alone and in record time. Who could speak a language that no one else had ever heard of, which he claimed was an obscure dialect of Ancient but which probably wasn't. Whose hair had briefly turned white-blonde under the desert sun, the exact same shade as that Ancient boy's hair.

Come to think of it, that little 'Ancient' had looked otherworldly as hell. A halo and a pair of wings would look just right on him _._

"Rush is an angel," Greer muttered, testing out the words to see if they sounded as ludicrous as he thought they would. Yep, they did.

"Rush is an angel."

Now Greer had to laugh. "Well, I knew he was _something_ , sir, but I hadn't guessed that."

Young flashed another brief smile. In a slow, deliberate motion, he reached out and took the bottle from Greer’s hands. He fortified himself with a drink and then gently rolled the container between his palms. "I guess not."

"That kid we picked up on the jungle planet must have been one too, then."

Young had been contemplating the bottle in his hands, but he looked up at that. His expression lightened just a little bit as he met Greer's eyes. "That kid was Rush," he said, and a tiny bit of warmth had crept into his tone. This was clearly something he liked to remember, something that blunted the edge of his pain. "Another version of Rush, sent back in time when he jumped through a wormhole affected by a solar flare."

Oh, freaky. But that sounded right, somehow. There had always been something familiar about that little guy. Not just his hair, but his mannerisms and tone of voice. And there had been the fact that everything about him had seemed to grate on Rush, as if he reminded Rush of things he didn't want to think about, or possibly as if Rush thought he posed some sort of threat to him in particular. Had Rush been afraid of being replaced by an alternate version of himself? That was kind of funny, actually.

"That's what Rush really looks like," Young continued. "That's why you saw what you saw in the desert. Rush tapped into some abilities he's not supposed to use in human form, and it caused his disguise to slip for a second."

Well, that made some kind of sense. It would explain why Rush looked about as angelic as Telford and twice as scruffy. But what was Young's excuse, then? Why that little blip with his eyes? He hadn't been doing anything particularly angelic at the time, as far as Greer could tell. Was he something different?

"You know, sir," he said slowly, "Your eyes changed color just now."

Young's knuckles went white as his grip tightened on the container. "Yeah?" he said. His voice was low and calm as ever, but Greer could tell he was rattled now. "What color?"

"Looked gold to me."

"Gold." Young's mouth hitched into an ironical little smile. "Okay. I didn't know."

"Didn't know?"

"What color they were. I don't know what I looked like as.... as an angel." He had spoken casually of Rush being an angel, even seeming to find it a bit funny, but now his shoulders and arms and legs all seemed to lock up, and his expression turned dark again. Clearly, he didn't feel comfortable thinking of _himself_ that way.

All this time, Greer had been serving under an honest-to-God _angel_ , and he hadn't had a single clue. Christ, this was a strange fucking day.

Young was still speaking. "I don't have any memories of being one," he said, his eyes fixed on the bottle in his hand as if he was confiding in it instead of Greer, "I mean, before I came to Earth. I thought I was a weird mutant human with wings until I met Rush. So I don't know… I don't know much about any of it, really. I left all the angel stuff to him." He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it until it stood on end, and took another swig from the bottle.

There was a lot to unpack there, so Greer focused on the part that stood out the most. "You have wings?" He said, trying and failing to picture Colonel Young with big, white, feathery wings like the angels in the illustrated book of Bible stories that he used to own as a kid. It didn't fit, somehow.

"That's right. I'll show you some day."

"I'd like that, sir," Greer said honestly. Incongruous or not, it was probably a sight worth seeing.

He was about to ask about Young's lost memories when he was distracted by the strong sense of disorientation that always accompanied a drop out of FTL. Young's eyes met his, suddenly alert and focused. That definitely wasn't the gaze of an intoxicated man. An exhausted and bereaved man, maybe, but Young could work through all that - he had before. Right now he looked like he was prepared to face the worst, and Greer knew the feeling. He didn't much like how vulnerable Destiny was at sub-light speeds, either. And visiting planets was always such a crapshoot.

Young set his bottle down on the table beside Greer and looked around for his radio. It was sitting beside him on the couch, but by the time he had located it and reached for it, it was already crackling with Riley's voice.

"Colonel Young? You're needed in the gate room. I think you'll want to see this."

Riley's cozy farm boy drawl rarely fluctuated regardless of his emotional state, but there was something about his inflection now that caught Greer's attention. He sounded vaguely surprised, somewhat apologetic, maybe even a little amused? It certainly whet Greer's curiosity.

"On my way," Young replied, and then he glanced at Greer. "Shall we?"

"Yes sir," Greer said, rising to his feet.

Another day, another adventure. It was probably just as well that Destiny rarely gave them much time to mourn. As for the angel stuff, Greer would have to save all that to chew on later.

 

* * *

 

When Young reached the gate room, he found it flooded with rippling blue light from an active wormhole. Riley stood behind one of the consoles, an eerie figure in the shifting glow, and Eli was beside him with remote in hand, piloting a kino toward the gate. Brody was at the other console, and all three of them wore the same baffled expression.

"What have we got?" Young asked.

"Twenty two hours on the clock. Destiny started dialing the gate the moment we dropped out of FTL," Riley said, "even though there aren't any stargates in range."

Eli snorted. "No _unique_ stargates in range is what he actually means," he said, "because clearly, there's a gate." The kino disappeared into the wormhole with a soft _blip_ , and Eli glanced down at the screen of his remote.

"Someone explain," Young sighed. He closed his eyes briefly against the light, which was exacerbating his headache. He had no patience for guessing games or mysteries right now. Just putting one foot in front of the other required an enormous output of mental energy. If this drop out of FTL represented a threat to his people, then he'd pull himself together to face it, but until he was convinced of that fact, he was going to remain in his cocoon of comfortable misery.

When he opened his eyes again, he noted that Greer had entered the room behind him and was now standing beside Eli, staring down at the kino remote with furrowed brows and an alert, suspicious gaze. Huh. Maybe this was worth Young's attention after all.

Riley looked up from his console and smiled blandly at Young. He looked as sedate as ever, but there was something in his eyes that said, 'can you believe this, sir?' "The address Destiny dialed wasn't unique," he said, "because it was the address to _our_ gate."

"A gate can't dial itself."

"Apparently it can dial other _versions_ of itself, though," Eli called out. "Look at this!"

Greer made room for Young at Eli's side, so he walked over and took a look at the kino remote screen. He found himself looking at… Destiny. A _different_ Destiny, one with scorch marks radiating out across the gate room floor and streaking across the walls on either side of the gate like someone had gone wild with a few dozen cans of black spray paint. Both consoles were dark, and one looked completely fried. All the lights were blown out. There were two tall structures on either side of the room that Young had never seen before, but which looked like they might be floodlights. They were each attached at their base to a small, rounded box of gray metal. The kino slowly spun in place, and Young could see that the stargate was flanked by two similar, larger boxes that were attached to it with thick, snake-like cords and wide clamps. The only light in the room came from the wormhole.

"That's the gate room, all right," commented Brody, who was now standing at Eli's other side and watching the image. "Looks like it's seen a battle or something."

"Or an explosion through the gate," Eli said. "Look at the pattern of the scorch marks."

"Yeah, that's a lot of damage."

"Well the life support system must be working, at least. The air quality is good."

Riley crowded in behind Eli and looked over his shoulder. "Did it come from an alternate universe?" he asked brightly, as if the idea pleased him.

 _Not exactly,_ thought Young as an old conversation resurfaced in his mind. Not an alternate universe per se, but a defunct timeline. He remembered the sensation of tangled gray feathers under his fingers and the high notes of a beautiful voice speaking a familiar language. He remembered a small, pale version of Rush standing before him in his quarters and hoping aloud that _his_ Destiny had been displaced in time, and that he would someday reunite with her.

But no, it hadn't really been Destiny that Rush had hoped to find. He had gone off in search of his Young, and he seemed ready to cross the entire universe if that was what it took. But if this was his Destiny, then might not his version of Young be right here? And what if that little blonde Rush had managed to traipse this far across the galaxy, stargate to stargate, and had already met up with his Young? Were they _both_ on this Destiny, by some miraculous chance?

Wishful thinking. It must be. He could never get that lucky. His desperation to see Rush, _any_ Rush, was getting the best of him.

Still, he was going to explore that ship.

"Greer," he murmured, "Get a team together. You and I going over there."

"Yes sir," Greer said, and left the room.

"I'd like to go," Eli said quickly. His expression was eager, but Young noted dark smudges under his eyes. The kid was exhausted. He'd been doing the work of three people ever since Rush had incapacitated himself in the chair, and he couldn't keep it up much longer.

"No, I need you here, Eli," Young decided. "But Brody and Riley, you're with us."

Eli sputtered in protest while Brody and Riley filed out of the room to gear up. "I can help. You might need me. It looks like there might be power issues, and those box-things are probably generators. If something goes wrong and you can't dial back--"

"Then Scott will have to fetch us in the shuttle if Brody can't find a solution," Young said.

"But I--"

"Eli," Young said firmly, "Rush is gone. You're the best I've got. You're needed here."

There. He'd managed to say it without even a tremor. He deserved points for that.

Eli blinked as if startled, and then he lowered his head. "Right."

Silence fell between them. Young knew he had some preparations of his own to complete if he was going to lead this mission, but he felt oddly reluctant to leave the room, as if that other Destiny would cease to exist the moment he turned his back on it.

"What do you think you'll find over there?" Eli asked in a hushed voice.

Young huffed softly. He looked at the wormhole, bright and beckoning and unearthly, and shook his head.

"Probably not what I'm looking for."

 


	2. Conviction

The first thing Young noticed when he stepped through the stargate into that charred version of Destiny's gate room was that the air didn't smell right. He was used to the tang of metal and the scent of dozens of humans living in close proximity - sweat and musk and less pleasant odors overlayed with the citrusy, herbal scent of cleansing mist from the showers. The hints of brine and of something else - something organic that he couldn't seem to place - were unexpected. At least he could breathe, but he didn't know how. There was no comforting whir of air coming through the vents. There was no sound at all, except for the footsteps of his team as they arrived through the gate behind him.

"Yeah, this place looks pretty busted," was Brody's assessment as soon as he had a chance to glance around the room.

It did look bad. It was somehow worse to see the damage in person, to imagine what had caused it and who had been in harm's way when it happened.

When the gate shut down it plunged the room into a near-total darkness which seemed barely displaced by the glow of the team's tactical flashlights. It reminded Young uncomfortably of when their own Destiny had shut down to conserve power after their arrival.

"Riley," Young said, "Try dialing."

The group cleared away from the front of the gate as Riley pulled his kino remote out of his pack and keyed in Destiny's address. There was a reverberating hum from the gray boxes hardwired to the gate, and then the gate began to dial. It connected, and the unstable vortex flared before settling into a placid puddle.

Young lifted his radio. "Lieutenant Scott, this Young. As you probably noticed, the gate is working from our end."

"Yes sir," came Scott's relieved voice through the radio. "That's good news."

"We're going to take a look around here, but we're not going far. Report in if you get a visual of the ship. I want to know what the outside looks like."

"Will do, sir, but Eli says we're not anywhere close to your position right now. He thinks the sensors might not be picking up your location accurately, so he's looking into that now. I'll let you know if he comes up with anything."

"You do that. Young out."

Young tucked his radio away and nodded at Riley to shut down the gate. The connection ended and the room was plunged back into darkness.

During Young's conversation with Scott, Greer, O'Hara and Garcia had fanned out to check the room. Brody was currently investigating one of the gray boxes attached to the strange light fixtures.

Riley walked over to the console that had taken the most damage and commented, "Looks like this thing practically exploded." He pulled out a small handheld flashlight and pointed it down at the wrecked panel. "I wouldn't want to be standing behind it when it happened."

Brody looked up from his examination of the alien tech, and Young felt a prickle of discomfort run down his spine. He tried to shake it off, but it lingered. So when Brody pulled off his pack and started rummaging through it for tools, Young said sharply, "What are you doing?"

"This plate looks like it's meant to be removed," Brody said, slapping the front of the gray box at his feet. "I'm going to pry it off and look inside."

"Wait on that," Young said. "We don't know that we're alone on this ship yet. Let's move out."

The team made its way through the open doorway across from the gate, with Greer taking point and O'Hara and Garcia in the rear. Young noted that the scent of brine was definitely getting stronger.

As they passed through well-known corridors turned alien by unfamiliar scars, Young noted that the darkness seemed to be weakening. Somewhere ahead was a source of light, however frail, which seemed to suggest that the ship was still occupied. It appeared unlikely that its occupant was his doppelganger, at least not alone - he certainly wouldn't know how to set up those generators in the gate room, if that was even what they were. But Rush, _he_ might do something like that, right? It was possible. Unlikely, but _possible_.

A faint clicking noise in the distance interrupted his thoughts and set him on high alert. It was a very soft noise at first, but it was growing steadily louder and closer. Greer halted and raised a fist in warning, then readied his weapon. Something small and insectoid and _fast_ showed up briefly in the glow of his G36's flashlight before dashing forward, briefly out of view. Greer found it again with the spotlight. It was much closer now, and little bigger than Young had first thought. Not an insect at all, but some sort of robot, all spindly legs around a spherical body.

"Hold your fire," Young murmured. Greer's head dipped minutely in acknowledgement.

The bot came to a stop in front of Greer. For a moment it just sat there, as if in indecision, but then the top of the sphere popped open and projected a beam of red light at Greer, starting from his head and working its way down to his feet. It looked like was scanning him.

"Sir?" Greer breathed.

"Wait."

The bot completed its scan and closed itself into a ball again. It waited for another few seconds, turning this way and that as if it really couldn't make up its mind where it wanted to go, and then it skittered off back the way it had come.

"What in the hell?" Greer said. He glanced back over his shoulder at Young and lifted his brows as if to say, 'You see what that little bastard did? You should have let me shoot it.'

"I'm guessing we'll find out what that was all about pretty soon," Young replied dryly.

"Never seen one of those things before," Riley said with his usual placidity.

"I don't think it's Ancient," Brody said.

No, probably not. And if Rush had designed it, wouldn't it look a lot more like Ancient technology? Wouldn't it float like a kino or something? Why couldn't he let go of the idea that the time-displaced Rush and Young were here? It was getting pathetic, and more importantly, it was potentially placing his team in danger. On the other hand, his instincts were screaming at him that this place, this alternate version of Destiny, was important. He was right where he was supposed to be - he just didn't quite know what he was supposed to be doing.

Either way, shooting first and asking questions later had rarely been his prefered approach to new situations.

"Let's just keep moving," Young said.

They continued down the corridor and emerged into the small room in front of the observation deck. The light source was immediately apparent - the door to the observation deck was cracked open a few inches, and a welcoming glow issued from it.  Young walked over to the door control and tested it, but as he suspected, nothing happened. So he handed his gun off to Garcia, slipped his fingers into the opening, and pulled the door open manually.

Sunlight, warm and glorious and completely unexpected, flooded the room. All six team members stood and blinked into it, waiting for their eyes to adjust to its unfamiliar brilliance, before slowly walking forward. The view through the windows was… confusing. A stunning violet-blue sky, a vast, churning ocean, and a stretch of land in the distance covered in buildings of various sizes and shapes in architectural styles Young had never seen before. The ship itself was floating on the surface of the water, as near as Young could tell. Whether it had the capacity to do so by itself (unlikely), or whether it was supported by some kind of framework, there was no way to tell from this angle. Either way, he couldn't feel the rocking of the waves, but then, one wouldn't on a ship of this size.

At least now he knew where the scent of brine was coming from.

"We're on a planet," Brody pointed out helpfully.

"So it would seem," Young said. "That would have been useful information to have an hour ago."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know," Riley said guiltily. "I mean, I could have cross-checked the coordinates of the ship with the sensor readings from the surrounding planets, but…"

"But you had no reason to suppose that there would be any overlap," Young said. "I get that. This must be what Eli meant about the sensors not picking up our location accurately. The sensors probably aren't the problem - this ship just isn't where we expected it to be."

Greer walked up to the railing and peered out over Destiny's battered hull toward the ocean and landmass beyond. He blew out a breath, and then looked back at Young over his shoulder. "Someone went to a lot of effort to get it here."

"A _lot_ of effort," Brody said, "considering that the ship is completely dead. If it ran out of power while it was still in space, it would have had to be towed here. I can't even imagine how that would work. It would have to be done very carefully to keep the ship from breaking apart and burning up in the atmosphere."

"So why go to all that trouble just to drop a dead ship in the ocean?" Young asked.

Brody shrugged and scratched his temple. "The stargate might be reason enough. This planet doesn't have one."

"Why doesn't it have one?" Greer murmured, staring out the window again. "That's what I'd like to know. 'Cause it's beautiful, with lots of sunshine, good air to breathe... but no gate. That's mighty interesting."

"Well, the conditions on the planet might have been different when the seed ships came through," Brody said.

"Or maybe there was another reason." Greer squinted at something on the horizon and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight. "And maybe that reason's still living here."

Young stepped up to the rail beside him and followed the direction of his gaze. There were two dots visible in the sky, leaving the city and moving toward their position. A little visit from the locals? Wonderful. "I guess that bot called some friends."

Greer gave him a look that clearly meant, 'Should've let me shoot it,' but all he said was "Yes sir."

The ships were traveling fast, but they were still quite a distance away and hard to see as more than a couple of dark specks against the sky. Distances were hard to gauge with few familiar reference points, but Young judged that it would be a while before they arrived. He had some time to make a decision - retreat through the gate, or wait to determine whether the aliens were of the friendly variety. If only he could see the ships a little more clearly…

"Here, sir." Riley was suddenly standing at his elbow, offering him a pair of binoculars. Why Riley had packed binoculars for an excursion to a space ship which they had all assumed was actually _in space_ , Young wasn't sure, but he was very grateful. He lifted the binoculars to his eyes and saw two gunmetal gray, bubble-shaped ships with red accents. They were still too far away to see more detail than that, but that was enough to make him feel a sudden spike of unease mixed with breathless hope.

"Look familiar?" Young asked Greer, passing the binoculars to him.

"Yes sir, they do," Greer said after he'd gotten a good look. "The aliens that took Chloe got away in a ship that looked just like that."

"Wait, _this_ is the blue aliens' planet?" Brody asked sharply. Oh, right. Young had forgotten that Brody had been on that foraging team. He was so habitually dry and even-keeled that it was hard to tell when he was distressed or shaken, but now it was evident in his voice, which was tight and a little higher than normal.

"Looks like it," Greer said.

"Or a colony, or an outpost. It doesn't matter," Young said. "We've seen a ship of similar design even more recently."

"The mothership that attacked us," Greer said.

"You think that the aliens that took Chloe are the same ones that took Rush?" Brody approached the rail and stared hard at the two ships as if he expected to see Chloe and Rush waving at him from a window. "So they could be here."

"They could be here," Young said. A voice in his head whispered, _They_ are _here._

His instincts had been right. He was right where he was supposed to be. And Rush, _his_ Rush, might be within reach.

"Well, if they are here," Brody said, "we're never going to find them in twenty hours. And I doubt the aliens are going to let us walk into their city and start a search."

It did seem rather unlikely that the aliens would cooperate, and it was true that Rush and Chloe could be anywhere on this planet, assuming they were here at all. There was plenty of room for doubt. A wiser commander than Young might well consider the odds too unfavorable to attempt a rescue. But maybe Rush was starting to rub off on him, because Young was starting to wonder if his so-called Sovereign was at work here. Maybe Young was _meant_ to find Rush and bring him back to Destiny so he could continue to pursue his calling. Or maybe he was grasping at straws.

"Those things know English, right?" Greer said. "So we capture one and interrogate it."

"They know the word 'surrender.' They could have picked that up from Chloe. It might be the only English word they know," Brody argued.

"Either way, we're going to need backup before those ships arrive," Young said. "Riley and Brody, you're with me. We're going to report in. Greer, take O'Hara and Garcia and look around a bit. Make sure we're alone on this ship."

 

* * *

 

As Young had suspected, the minute he informed Scott that Chloe might be on the planet, Scott had all but insisted to be allowed to join the exfiltration team. Young was having none of it. He was already taking a big risk and putting a number of his people in danger just for the sake of a hunch. He wasn't going to risk leaving Destiny without a leader if for some reason he couldn't get his team back to the gate in time. So it was Lieutenant James who stepped through the gate fifteen minutes later, followed by Corporal Barnes and six other soldiers.

Greer had radioed in a few minutes earlier to report that he'd found three more bots, but so far there was no sign of anything _alive_ inhabiting Destiny. That was good news. Their team wouldn't be attacked from behind while they were dealing with the aliens in those two ships, at least.

James stepped up to Young with a smile tugging at her lips and a battle-ready gleam in her eyes. "Rumor has it we're here to rescue Rush and Chloe, sir."

Young mirrored her smile, charmed by her enthusiasm for the mission. He knew Rush wasn't a favorite with hers, but Chloe… well, everyone liked Chloe. "Before we can think about that, we have to fight our way through some aliens. You up for it?"

"I've been wanting another shot at them since they took Chloe," she said. "I'm ready."

"Good," Young said, and then he looked over at Barnes, who was standing just off to one side clutching a familiar black shoulderbag in lieu of a rifle. "Is that TJ's kit?"

"I've been helping her in the infirmary," Barnes said, looking slightly uncomfortable under the weight of the bag, as if it represented the burden of responsibility for the health of the entire away team. "She thought I might need it. I'm also under orders to tell you that she's, um... _disappointed_ not to be here."

"Noted," Young said dryly. TJ's _disappointment_ was hardly surprising, but like Scott, she was needed on Destiny. Just in case.

_Just in case you lead these thirteen people to their deaths because you can't let Rush go._

No, it was pointless to think like that. He was doing this for Chloe as well as Rush. He would do it for any member of his crew.  It wasn't in his nature to leave someone behind.

"Sir," Greer's voice came through the radio, "We've located a hull breach in one of the living areas. It's near Lieutenant Scott's quarters. Might be their usual point of entry."

Young pictured the perfectly round opening in the hull near Rush's quarters on his Destiny. It was small, allowing only one person to pass through at a time. It would be awfully convenient if the aliens got themselves stuck in a bottleneck situation, but he had a feeling they weren't that stupid. "That's the only one you've found?" He asked.

"So far. The airlocks are sealed and there's no power to open them. I don't think the blue bastards are getting in that way. There are breaches in the uninhabited areas, though."

Young decided not to point out that this entire ship was uninhabited. He knew what Greer meant. "True, but they could be flooded with seawater for all we know. I think it's more likely that the aliens will cut a second hole further down the corridor from the first one, hoping that we'll be lying in wait for them there, and try to trap us between two forces."

"It's what I'd do," Greer agreed.

Young glanced around the gate room. James and her team waited off to one side. They all had the slightly run-down, hungry look about them that had come to characterized the entire crew, but they seemed ready for action nonetheless. Brody was on the floor, having taken the opportunity to pull the faceplate off one of the smaller generators and poke around inside. His frown of concentration looked eerie and distorted in the purple glow emitted by the wires, crystals, and circuits within the device. Riley stood nearby, tapping his flashlight and the kino remote together to the beat of an unheard melody while he watched Brody work.

They made for such a small, underprepared, ragtag group. Young had to play this smart if they were all going to pull through.

"Regroup to the gate room," he said into the radio, and then he turned to Riley. "I need you to go back to the observation deck and report on the progress of those ships."

"Yes sir." Riley nimbly hopped to his feet and handed off the kino remote to Airman Metner. He left the room, preceded by the beam of his flashlight.

Brody closed up the generator and climbed to his feet. "If there's time, I'd like to go set this thing up in front of Scott's quarters."

Young looked from Brody to the box and then back again. Brody's expression was bland.

"Why?"

"This box contains a lot of power for its size. There are plenty of safeguards to keep it from overloading, but…"

"You just disabled them," Young guessed.

"I think so. To be honest, I'm not sure what I did, but I think there's about a seventy-five percent chance that it will explode next time it tries to power up. And the best thing about it is that it's activated by a sensor. My guess is that when the aliens step into this room, these light fixtures are supposed to come on. But it's obviously not a traditional motion sensor, since the lights haven't turned on for us."

"You think it only works for the aliens."

Brody nodded. "It would be a good power-saving feature if animals couldn't set it off."

Young flashed a fierce grin. His people might be slightly worn down and malnourished, but they were innovative as hell. "Go set it up," he said, "and good work."

 

* * *

 

The waiting was always the worst part, Young reflected as he leaned against a doorframe in a pitch black room. These moments of alert stillness, when his breathing turned shallow and his pulse sped with anticipation, felt like centuries. Everything was ready. Everyone was in position. James' team was on the far end of this level, occupying one of the small nexus rooms where multiple corridors intersected. Young's team was in another such room at the end of the corridor leading to Scott's quarters. Greer's team was in motion, sweeping rooms and corridors located along the hull that could be breached by the aliens. Young wished he had enough people to man the gate room as well - all this would be pointless if they lost their escape route - but they were stretched too thin as it was. They would have to act fast and try to contain the alien threat as soon as possible so the aliens didn't have much opportunity to spread out. If they did happen to make it as far as the gate room, Brody had another little surprise waiting for them there. If nothing else, the sound of an explosion should signal Greer's team to go and investigate.

Fuck. This would all be so much easier if the ship had power. Standing in the dark with no access to the technology that had always acted as his eyes and ears was slow torture. It must be even worse for Brody, who had nothing to do now but hang back and hold onto Young's sidearm for dear life. At least the engineer had _some_ weapons training. He would probably need it.

Greer's voice issued through Young's radio in a low, soft murmur, "Breach on port side corridor leading to the observation deck. The other ship's probably coming your way."

Young lifted his radio. "Have you been seen?"

"Not yet. They're still cutting their way through."

"Hang back and don't engage. I need you to secure their ship."

"Yes sir."

Well, that was one ship accounted for. If the other one landed where he hoped and expected it to, then Young's five-man team could easily end up sandwiched between the two groups of aliens. It wasn't ideal, but he'd known that it was a possibility.

A few minutes later, there was a sudden flash of light from Scott's corridor, followed by a reverberating _boom_ that made the deck and bulkheads shudder with the force of it. Behind him, Young heard Brody grunt with triumph. The second group of aliens had found his welcoming gift.

Young flicked on the tactical light on his UMP, and the single beam was immediately joined by three others as Riley, Mackie, and Metner turned on their flashlights. Time to start moving now that they were visible targets. "Let's go," he whispered, and set off down the corridor toward the site of the explosion. He knew that James's team would be on the move also, closing in on the breach from the opposite end of the corridor. Assuming that Brody's makeshift bomb had taken out or at least injured some of the aliens, this would hopefully be a quick skirmish.

The air in the corridor grew warmer as they progressed. Smoke and acrid fumes left a bitter tang at the back of Young's throat, and he hoped he wasn't inadvertently poisoning his team by coming through here too soon after the explosion. They couldn't afford to wait, though. If it came to the point where they were playing hide and seek with the aliens all over the ship, they would already have lost. This needed to end quickly. Time was not on their side.

Up ahead, a white glow shone through the murky air like a spotlight from the ceiling. The floor was littered with shrapnel and glass from the blast, along with bits and pieces of messy organic matter. The stench was unbelievable. Shapes moved sluggishly at the edges of the light, and more were descending through the hull breach. They looked horrific and wrong, stretched out and contorted, with veins and bones and brains visible through translucent blue skin. Their glowing eyes blinked rapidly, as if they were particularly sensitive to the debris and fumes in the air. The time to attack was now, when they were stilled dazed and making perfect targets of themselves in that halo of light. Young's team opened fire.

The aliens seemed to have trouble aiming at Young's team through the darkness, suggesting that their night vision was no better than a human's. In contrast to the aliens, who were literally standing within a spotlight, the humans were only visible by their flashlights, which didn't make for very effective targets. A sizzling bolt did strike Young's UMP, but the weapon absorbed the energy without transferring more than a faint buzzing sensation to Young's fingers. He retaliated with a short burst of fire, and his attacker crumpled. The second alien dropped a moment later, and the slow-moving, wounded aliens were picked off one by one before they could flee or return fire.

More aliens were dropping from the ceiling, and the newcomers at least had the sense to open fire immediately and move backwards, out of the light. But an eruption of gunfire and the pinpoint beams of more flashlights from the other end of the hall signaled that James's team had arrived. Caught between two opposing forces, the aliens didn't last long.

After the last alien fell, Young moved into the circle of of light, trying to ignore the squish of blood and innards under his boots as he went. He looked up into the hull breach. He could see only a bit of the inside of the alien's craft - not enough to determine whether it was occupied - but in the post-battle stillness, he thought he could hear movement. There was still at least one alien inside, and they were probably preparing to retreat. He needed to get up there.

"All the aliens that came through the breach are confirmed dead, sir," James said at his elbow.

"There are more incoming from the other ship," Young said, turning toward her. He noticed a fine spray of bluish droplets across one of her sleeves. She had gotten in close and personal for one of her kills. "We need to take them out, but first I want to sweep this ship and make sure it's clear."

"Sir," Riley stepped close to the circle of light and held out a small, teardrop-shaped, black object with a glowing blue knob. "I found this next to one of the bodies."

Young accepted it, turned it over in his hands, and then thumbed the knob lightly. There was a soft hum from overhead, and the familiar, comforting weight of gravity suddenly lost its grip on his body. He felt himself floating upwards, blinking in surprise at James and Riley as they stared up at him. And then he was inside the alien craft, being gently set down on the deck by the invisible force that had brought him here.

Well, that was one way to board a ship.

The vessel turned out to be about the size of Destiny's shuttles, with seating room for passengers and a small cockpit behind a partition in the front. Young was standing in the rear, gazing ahead through the open cockpit door at the solitary blue alien who stood looking right back at him, eyes wide and long fingers twitching. It made a sound reminiscent of a squealing piglet and reached toward the control panel. Young fired on it before it had a chance to touch anything, and the alien slid to the floor.

"Colonel, are you okay?" James called through his radio.

"Fine," he replied as he approached the cockpit. He kicked the dead alien out of the doorway and glanced around. No other signs of life. "This ship is secure. Greer, how are you doing on the other one?"

"Threw a couple of grenades into it and then climbed up to take a look. We got 'em all," Greer reported cheerfully.

"We can't let the aliens retreat in that ship. Can you disable it?"

"Sure, we'll figure something out."

"After that, regroup with us outside Scott's quarters. We'll try to corner the second group of aliens here."

"Yes sir."

Young frowned down at the flight controls. He was going to be flying this ship very soon if all went according to plan. That should have been a daunting thought - he'd never even seen these aliens before today, let alone their technology - but there was something very familiar about the layout of this panel. It really wasn't all that different from the flight controls in Destiny's shuttles, and each knob, switch, and button was labeled in two languages, one of which was Ancient. That made some kind of sense, he supposed. These aliens were clearly fascinated by the Ancients. They had gone to all the trouble of dragging Destiny to this planet and plopping her in the ocean, after all. It was natural, therefore, that Ancient influences were evident in their technology.

It was also convenient.

The crack of gunshots issuing from the corridor below drew him from his thoughts and sent him running back toward the hatch at the back of the small ship. He dropped through the opening into the midst of another battle. As he'd half expected and feared, the aliens had split their force and attacked from two directions, putting the humans in much the same position that the original group of aliens had been in a few minutes earlier. The humans were trapped near the source of light, while in the darkness, the aliens had only the glow of their eyes to give away their positions. Fortunately, the team's flashlights counteracted this disadvantage to some extent.

Several aliens had already fallen, but some of Young's team members had taken damage as well. Riley's forehead was slick with blood, but he was still on his feet, so hopefully his injury was minor. Metner was crouched in the doorway of Scott's quarters. Her right sleeve was partially burnt away and her flesh charred where a blast from one of the enemies' guns had grazed her. She was drawing in deep, sucking breaths as she fumbled with her gun, determined to keep firing through the pain. The rest of the team seemed okay, but there was no denying that they were in a terrible position. They needed back-up, but it would be a while before they could expect any from Greer's team.

Young had taken up a position behind James, who was tucked against the wall behind one of the narrow, arched bulkhead outcroppings set at regular intervals along the corridor. Aside from the doorway to Scott's quarters, these arches were the only available cover, and Young's team was making the most of them.

"These aliens have shit timing, sir," James commented breathlessly. "And they stole our strategy."

"We just have to hold out for a few minutes," he said, and started firing at the winking lights of alien eyes in the darkness ahead.

"Yes sir," James said between bursts gunfire. "We will."

Relief came several minutes later, just as Young had predicted it would. An attack from the rear took one group of aliens completely by surprise, and they were dead before they knew which way to look. Greer's team was soon stepping over the bodies to join the rest of the humans. By that point, the aliens attacking from the opposite direction were so comically outnumbered that they turned and fled. Greer led his team in pursuit, and they returned victorious a short while later.

In the aftermath of the battle, Young looked around and took stock of his team. Everyone was breathing hard and showing signs of adrenaline-fueled jitteriness. Riley was now dabbing at his forehead with a bit of gauze, revealing a cut where a bit of shrapnel must have nicked him. Barnes was kneeling beside Metner, applying a field dressing over her wound. Greer and James were exchanging tired smiles.

"Nice work," Young told Greer, and then glanced at James to include her in the praise.

Greer shot him a lazy grin. "We would have been here faster, sir, but it took some doing to bust up the flight controls in that other ship."

"Did you get a headcount of the aliens from that one?"

"We saw twelve leaving the ship, and there were three more inside."

Twelve aliens. Young pictured the many glowing eyes that had surrounded them in the darkness. Twelve pairs of eyes sounded right. That was good. That was all of the aliens accounted for, then.

"Sir," Barnes said from the doorway to Scott's quarters. She had risen to her feet and was now helping Metner to stand up, "I think TJ needs to look at Metner's wound."

"Okay," Young said, "I'll accompany her to the gate room. I should update Scott anyway." He glanced over at Riley. "You okay, Sergeant?"

"I'm fine," Riley assured him, holding the bloody gauze to his forehead. "Just a scratch."

Young nodded at him. So, just one soldier down. That left thirteen. Thirteen people, including himself, preparing to pile into an alien ship and take on a whole city, possibly a whole planet, by themselves. He must be insane.

In his place, Rush would never dream of mounting a rescue like this. It was too big a risk. Too many lives at stake just to save a couple. And yet his gut was telling him to do it anyway. And his team…

He looked around at his team again. They looked tired, but ready.

Okay. Time for the next step.


	3. Wrath

The alien ship handled beautifully - a welcome treat after the clunkiness of Destiny's shuttles. It was remarkably fast for a transport vessel, yet it made very little sound as it cut through the air. The controls were intuitive and very responsive. Young wanted one.

Young sat at the front of the cockpit at the pilot's station, his eyes fixed forward on that strip of distant shore across the dark ocean. On his left side was Riley, manning the communications station, while Brody occupied a console to his right and was currently searching the ship's computer for useful information.

Through the open doorway to the passenger and luggage area, Young could hear the murmured conversations of the rest of his team. It was a good sign that they were talking. The kind of nerves that made a soldier talkative were less dangerous than the kind that made him silent, in Young's experience. He could hear Greer's voice, smooth and steady and vaguely pleased, as if he couldn't think of any place he'd rather be at the moment than right here, on this alien ship, about to fight his way through a whole city if that's what it took to complete the mission. James's voice was equally calm but more focused and business-like. She was taking her position as Young's second on this mission very seriously, and Young approved. When Barnes spoke at all, it was in her usual quiet, matter-of-fact tone. Everyone else sounded a little jittery, but not overly so. They would be ready when the time came for action.

Riley suddenly broke the silence in the cockpit. "We're getting a hail from the city," he said, his voice rising just a touch on the last syllable as if his statement was really a question.

Yeah, Young had been expecting that. He'd just hoped it wouldn't come quite this soon. "What's it say?" he asked.

"I uh… I don't speak alien," Riley said apologetically.

Young heard Brody rise from his chair and cross to Riley's side of the cockpit. "Don't you have the translator on?"

"Translator?"

"Yeah, right here." There was a tapping sound of fingers on the touchscreen to Young's left, and then Brody continued, "See? The aliens have it set up so that you can translate everything to Ancient. I don't know if they use it as a sort of lingua franca or if they just really like Ancient, but it's useful."

"Yeah, but I don't really speak much Ancient either," Riley admitted.

"I thought you were studying with Eli."

"I am, but learning a dead language isn't the work of a day. What does the message say?"

A slight pause. "They want to know what happened and why we're coming back alone," Brody said, "and why the other team isn't responding."

Young pondered what sort of answer would buy him the most time. There was still a lot of water to cross, and he didn't want the locals to get suspicious and shoot him out of the sky.

"Are we going to answer it?" Riley asked.

"Yes," Young said. "Say.... say that the invaders damaged the other transport's communication system, but they've been eliminated now. The remaining team is working to repair the damage to the ship and clean up the aftermath."

"They'll probably send out another team to help with the repairs and clean up," Brody pointed out.

Very likely. And then the news of the disabled alien ship and the alien bodies littering the corridor would be transmitted back to the city, and _then_ all hell would break loose. He had to find a safe place to land before that happened. And once it _did_ happen, there was no likelihood that the aliens would leave Destiny undefended. By the time Young's team was ready to return, the gate would be heavily guarded, and he certainly wouldn't have the element of surprise on his side this time.

Well, he could worry about the return trip once he had Rush and Chloe. One step at a time.

"Won't they wonder why _we_ didn't stay to help out?" Riley asked.

That was a good point, actually. "Tell them we've taken one of the humans alive and we're bringing them back for interrogation." That seemed to be more or less in character for these aliens.

"Risky," Brody murmured, but something in his tone indicated that he liked it anyway. More soft tapping noises, and then Brody let out a soft huff. "Okay, message sent."

Young nodded, keeping his eyes forward on that city skyline. The buildings were still indistinct in spite of the distance they'd already traveled, and Young was starting to realize that they must be considerably larger than he'd first suspected. The effect was much like that of a mountain range, which appeared closer than it was because of its sheer size, but which seemed to remain unchanged as one traveled toward it.

"There's a reply," Riley said a moment later. "Oh, I recognize this word. Something about a sanctuary."

"It's a confirmation," Brody said. "Looks like they bought it."

"Good. What's that about a sanctuary?" Young asked.

"The message ends with, 'proceed to the sanctuary.' That's the Ancient translation, at least. It could also mean shrine, or sacred place," Brody said. "Doesn't seem like the most likely place to take a prisoner. Could be a mistranslation."

Or not. A sanctuary seemed like a fairly appropriate place to keep an angel, actually.

"Let's assume it isn't, for now," Young said. "Figure out what sanctuary they're talking about. If that's where they want us to take our prisoner, then it might be where Rush and Chloe are being held too."

He heard the rustle of movement behind his chair as Brody returned to his own console. For a while there was silence in the cockpit once more, giving Young an opportunity to mull over the implications of the aliens' message. He had always assumed that Rush's kidnapping hadn't been a random event. The aliens had targeted him specifically for his wings, Young was sure of it. Did they associate winged creatures with religion, as many humans did? If they thought of Rush as some sort of celestial, awe-inspiring being, there was some hope that they were treating him well, at least. But what about Chloe? Why had they taken her in the first place? It seemed unlikely that they could have known about Rush before they interrogated her, so they must have originally wanted her for some other reason. Was she still useful to them, or were they finished with her now that they had Rush? Young wanted to believe that Rush wouldn't have let the aliens kill her, but in his present condition there might not have been much he could have done about it.

What would these aliens' religious practices look like? Were they stuffy and civilized? Barbaric and bloodthirsty? The fact that they wanted a prisoner brought to their sanctuary seemed ominous. Interrogation with a side of ritual sacrifice, perhaps?

This was not a productive train of thought.

"Nakai," Brody said suddenly, interrupting Young's morbid speculations. Young was profoundly grateful to him for the distraction.

"Is that the sanctuary?" he asked.

"No, it's what they call themselves. The aliens, I mean," Brody said. "They're the Nakai."

The Nakai. His enemies had a name. Young sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, wondering why that felt so important. 'The aliens' and 'the blue bastards that took Rush' had been adequate identifiers, but now the creatures had a name, and somehow that made all of this feel much more real.

"I see," he murmured.

"I also have a hit on the sanctuary," Brody said. "Looks like it's a pretty important public building. I'm sending you the coordinates now."

"Good."

"I've accessed a network that looks like a Nakai version of the internet. There's a lot of information here about the sanctuary - histories, a floor plan, upcoming events, a few press releases.... oh shit."

"What?"

No response. Out of the corner of his eye, Young could see that Brody had gone rigid in his chair. A small, luminous hologram floated above his console and cast a silvery light over his face, but Young couldn't see what it depicted without taking his attention away from the window and flight controls. The silence stretched out, so thick and portentous that even the soldiers in the rear of the ship sensed the change in atmosphere and grew quiet.

"Brody?" Young prompted.

Still no response. Riley turned in his chair to see what Brody found so absorbing and then hopped up to get a closer look.

"It can't be real," he commented. "It must be sort of… alien photoshopped."

"It looks real," Brody said, finding his voice again.

"You know I could stop piloting this ship and take a look for myself, but I don't think either of you want that," Young said with growing irritation.

"It's Rush," Riley blurted out, "and he has wings."

Oh. Young didn't know whether to be elated or distressed by that news. Rush was definitely here and that was good, that was _very_ good, but he'd shown the aliens his wings, and that was potentially very _bad_. Rush wasn't likely to let his wings out unless he felt entirely safe or he was under extreme duress, and the former seemed unlikely.

"How does he look?" Young asked.

"Did… did you not hear the part about the wings?" Riley said.

" _How does he look_?"

"Fine! I mean, kind of unhappy, but not hurt."

Well, that was something, but there was no way to tell from a static image how Rush was doing cognitively. How much had he recovered from his brain damage since Young had last seen him? How upset and terrified was he? What had the Nakai done to induce him to reveal his wings?

"Is he at the sanctuary?" Young asked. His voice had gone rough with tension and fear.

"Yeah," Brody said quietly. "He's… a public attraction."

 _Fuck_. "Of course he is."

"This article mentions another prisoner being held there. Someone with 'valuable information leading to the discovery of the...' Er, uh, the ancient translation of this word is 'angelus,' which--"

"Isn't important right now," Young interjected.

"Right." Brody cleared his throat. "The other prisoner could be Chloe."

"Sounds like it."

"It says she's on level 62. I'll send the floor plan to the kino remote."

Young drew another deep breath and exhaled, trying to release some of his anger. He now had hope, a clear destination, and the first inklings of a plan, so this was not the moment to lose his focus and let rage take over. Rush and Chloe were here and there was reason to believe that they were both alive. That was so much more information than he'd had even five minutes ago, and he was grateful for it. But _shit_ , he was pissed.

"So, just to be clear," Riley said after a moment, "we're not talking about the wings."

Brody shifted uncomfortably in his chair and shrugged as if to say 'what's there to say? Rush has wings," which Young appreciated. It was possible that Brody assumed the wings were a result of a Nakai experiment - that did seem to be the natural conclusion when a perfectly normal-looking person gets kidnapped by aliens and then later shows up sporting a giant pair of wings. Or maybe he was respecting Young's disinclination to discuss the fact that the Nakai had referred to Rush as an angel. It was always a bit hard to gauge what Brody was thinking.

"Let's focus on getting our people back, and then we can address the wings," Young said. He had a feeling that a lot of secrets were going to be unearthed as a result of this mission. So be it. That was a small price to pay to have Rush back.

 

* * *

 

The Nakai city was like nothing Young had ever seen before. It consisted largely of skyscrapers which flared out from narrow foundations and cast looming shadows over canals, green spaces, and walkways below. The buildings' widened upper stories appeared to be the Nakai's answer to parking decks - huge docks for flying vehicles - and taken collectively, they gave the impression of a dark canopy above an urban forest. Judging by the lack of streets below, air traffic was the norm here. Fortunately, the guesswork of trying to abide by unknown traffic laws was eliminated by their ship's own navigation system, which had projected a helpful holographic display of the city's established air lanes over the front window as soon as the ship entered city limits. Also displayed was a glowing trail of light leading, presumably, to the coordinates that Brody had sent to Young's station. It was like a huge, three dimensional GPS, and it just added more fuel to Young's growing infatuation with this little spacecraft.

He thought he might just have to keep it.

"Is there an intercom switch on my console?" he asked Brody.

"Left side, third from top," Brody said after a brief glance toward the pilot's station.

Young flicked the switch on. "Listen up," he said, and heard his own voice amplified through hidden speakers, "We're heading for a building called 'the sanctuary' where we believe the Nakai - the aliens - are holding Rush and Chloe.  We'll probably have a welcoming party waiting for us, but they're expecting friendlies, so hopefully it will be small. After we deal with them, Lieutenant James's team will rescue Chloe. You'll have the kino remote, which is already programmed with the floor plan and Chloe's location. My team will search for Rush. This is not a military facility - it's a public building - so if we're lucky, security will be lax. Still, we're going to have to move fast. I want to be in and out before reinforcements arrive.  Any questions?"

"Chloe and Rush are definitely alive?" James called out.

"Near as we can tell."

There was a collective murmur from the back of the ship, buzzing with relief and determination.

"Why a public building?" Barnes asked. "Why a 'sanctuary?'" Her low voice was barely audible over the hum of conversation, as if she was talking to herself and not expecting an answer. Her tone suggested that she found the idea deeply disturbing, however convenient it might be for the purposes of their mission, and Young felt a glow of warmth at the knowledge that someone else was worried about the implications of that fact.

"That isn't entirely clear yet," Young replied. "But we do know that Rush is… on display. And he might not look quite how we're used to seeing him."

"Shit." That was Greer's voice, heavy with understanding. Young was fiercely glad that he had confided in him, because he needed an ally now when everything was about to come undone and all his safely hidden truths were about to see the light of day. Rush didn't seem to fear exposure, but Young? Young was terrified of it. There was still a voice in his head - his own voice, not that other, new voice which sometimes rumbled deep and strange and yet horribly familiar - that whispered breathlessly about dire consequences. But there was more to consider now than his own pathetic fear. There was honor and solidarity and the deepest friendship he had ever known. It was an obvious choice. Daunting, but obvious.

His explanation had generated another babble of conversation and a few shouted questions about Rush, but Greer relieved him of the necessity of answering. "Focus on your assignments, people," he said. "You let the colonel worry about the details."

"What he said," James agreed. "All that matters right now is that they're alive, and we're breaking them out."

Apparently he had two allies, Young thought, and James didn't even know the truth. And there were also Brody and Riley, who had taken the wings - and the mention of angels - more or less in stride. Perhaps he had less to fear than he'd thought.

He turned off the intercom and focused on following the bright pathway marked out for him through the air. It led him right toward the heart of the city, where the buildings stood ever closer together and the architecture became increasingly eye-catching. The mushroom- or fan-shaped designs were still prevalent, but they were ornamented with crystalline spires, organic curves, arches and spirals and helixes, their metal and glass surfaces glittering a rainbow of colors in the late afternoon sunlight. Every skyscraper appeared to be trying to outdo its neighbors, and the most glorious of all was an iridescent blue-and-black structure that bloomed upward from the center of a lush park and unfurled like a pair of stylized wings against the open sky.

Young didn't need the navigation system to tell him that this was the sanctuary. It stood as a dazzling testament to the zeal and devotion of its creators. He had never seen a more beautiful structure in his life, and yet something about it struck him as unspeakably blasphemous.

"Jesus," Brody muttered. "That explains the strange floor plan. I thought it might just be an alien thing."

"Lacks subtlety," was Riley's assessment, "and I'm sensing a theme."

Young didn't comment. He was too busy noticing the way the peacock blue of the upper wings faded into black, giving them the same scorched appearance as his own wings. Was that why the building made him so uncomfortable? Because the color scheme reminded him of his fallen status? Or was it the glorification of disgrace and the implied idolatry that unsettled him?

It didn't matter. He had to focus on the next step and not let himself get distracted. Later he could ponder the implications of the wing motif and his own confusing reaction to it. Or not. He could always just try to ignore it along with everything else associated with his angelic heritage. That was working for him just fine.

 

* * *

 

The sanctuary had clearly been designed for spectacle rather than practicality, Greer mused as he followed Young through narrow, twisting corridors and wide, glittering galleries, down spiraling walkways and around inexplicable dead ends. It was a maze, pure and simple, and it simultaneously made it easy to avoid running into too many Nakai and extremely difficult to figure out where the hell they were going. Everything was bathed in the blue glow of sunlight through tinted windows. The effect was pretty enough, in an eerie kind of way. The floor consisted of reflective metal that looked like dark, rippling water in the light. There were hologram projections on many of the walks or freestanding in the center of the floor. They depicted various scenes, strange creatures, and Nakai figures who probably had some sort of historical or cultural significance. Physical artworks of various materials were also everywhere, although Greer felt that some of them stretched the limitations of the term 'art' past the breaking point.

He wasn't sure how long they had been exploring. This building was so huge that it seemed like they could just walk forever without ever retracing their steps. When he'd first heard it described as a sanctuary, he'd been expecting something more like a church, but from what he'd seen of it so far, it was really a museum. And like most museums he'd been to, it got old real fast.

Not that there hadn't been a few skirmishes to liven things up. The Nakai knew the humans were here, and they were looking for them. There had been a brief but noisy firefight on the docks when the Nakai 'welcoming party' had realized exactly who they had invited to their sanctuary, and after that, the team had encountered a few more groups of Nakai. But Young had been right about the security - it was lax. The guards they had fought so far were probably more used to dealing with art thieves than military personnel. If the Nakai were smart, they were concentrating their most highly trained forces around Rush and Chloe, so this mission might get a lot more interesting soon.

He wondered if things had been as uneventful for James's team as for Young's. Maybe they were getting a little more action.

"Brody," Young said, pausing to stare with unveiled loathing at a stone Nakai bust set with glowing crystal eyes, "I think we're walking in circles. I could swear I saw this thing ten minutes ago."

"Different thing," Brody said.

"How the fuck can you tell?"

"Shape of the head, mostly."

Young shook his own head slowly. "If you say so."

"Look, I studied the floor plan," Brody said. "There's a big auditorium up ahead, the largest one in the building. If they're showing Rush off to the public, that would be the most logical place to do it."

Young nodded and gave the bust one last, disapproving look before walking on.

There were more corridors ahead, more galleries, more turns and nooks and doorways that didn't appear to lead anywhere. But Brody's sense of direction must be pretty good, because as they progressed, they started to encounter more Nakai civilians, which seemed like a sign that they were heading toward the building's main attraction. It was clear that word had not gone out to the civilians about the extraterrestrial threat in the building, because they all reacted with various degrees of shock and panic. A few simply stood still and stared in fascinated horror at the humans. Others ran shouting in their weird, half-squealing, half-clicking voices, and others stepped forward to shield their young ones from view, looking ready for a fight that they couldn't hope to win.

One such group stood directly in the team's path, blocking a doorway. Two small, wide-eyed aliens stood behind a bristling adult. Young called a halt and took a few steps toward the adult Nakai.

"We're not here to hurt you," he said gently. "Brody, tell them."

Brody spoke a few words in Ancient. The Nakai's eyes flicked from Young to him and then back to Young. They made a soft trilling sound.

"It's okay. Just move out of the way," Young said, and Brody translated.

The Nakai hesitated. They were breathing hard, their chest rising and falling rapidly. Then they chittered and turned hastily to scoop up their children, one under each arm, and backed out of the doorway to let the team pass by. When Greer looked back at them, the Nakai was staring after them as if stunned, still holding the two squirming youngsters in their arms.

The next corridor was shorter, and it opened onto a wider chamber that was full of natural and artificial light. There were potted plants everywhere, some of which swayed gently as if in a breeze that only they could feel. The floor here was made of glittering glass tiles that looked like gemstones. In the center of the room was a towering blue stone statue of a Nakai with a huge pair of outstretched wings sprouting from its back.

"Shit," Young whispered, stopping dead in his tracks.

"Oh look," Riley said in a dry voice. "More wings. Let's not talk about these either."

Greer stepped up beside Young and glanced at his face. He looked pale and stricken with some unwelcome realization.

"Is that supposed to be a--" Greer began, but he cut himself off before he completed the question. Young would know what he meant.

"I think so," Young said softly. "I mentioned disguises, didn't I?"

"Yeah. I guess they don't have to look human."

"I guess not."

So the Nakai knew about angels. Hell, they might even have angels living among them. That cleared up a few things. It still didn't completely explain why the Nakai had wanted Rush, but it was definitely a big fat clue.

"Let's keep moving," Young said after a moment.

"Yeah, we should be close to the auditorium now," Brody said.

They continued into a short corridor that led to a larger chamber. Multiple hallways intersected here, and at the far end of the room was a large, beautifully ornate door. It seemed safe to assume that the door led to the auditorium, especially since it was guarded by half a dozen armed Nakai.

The first shots rang out before Young's team had even set foot in the room. There was absolutely no cover available, so Young just kept striding forward as he returned fire. That suited Greer just fine. It wasn't even as if these Nakai were good shots. Their formation made no sense strategically, and a few of them looked like they barely knew how to hold their weapons. The forces on each side of the skirmish might have been equal, but this definitely wasn't a fair fight. All six Nakai were down before the human team had made it halfway to the door.

"I expected that to be a little harder somehow," Young commented.

"This isn't the main entrance to the auditorium," Brody explained. "This one leads to one of the upper tiers, I think."

"Tiers?"

"You know, like a balcony. I bet all the entrances are guarded, and the security forces had to stretch themselves pretty thin to manage it."

"Well if it's a balcony, how does that help us?" Greer asked. "Rush isn't going to be in the balcony."

"If nothing else, it will give us a look at what's going on in there," Young muttered, walking up to the door. He examined it closely, frowning. It was not immediately apparent where the door control was located, but eventually he found it in the middle of a spiral of glowing blue crystals off to one side. He pressed it, and the door slid open.

Immediately visible inside was a long ramp leading down to a metal railing, with seating on each side. The ceiling arched overhead, vast and dazzling with multicolored lights. Young stepped through the doorway ahead of the rest of the team, ignoring the stares and cries of Nakai civilians who had obviously heard the gunfight that had just taken place outside. He kept walking, moving down the ramp with his eyes forward. Greer knew the exact moment that Young was able to see the stage far below, because he stiffened and halted.

Greer hastened to follow, pausing briefly to brandish his rifle at a group of Nakai who looked like they were thinking of attacking en masse. He reached Young's side and looked down.

The stage wasn't set up for any kind of conventional performance. It reminded Greer of a laboratory, or possibly an operating room, with tables everywhere covered in mysterious equipment and alarming instruments. The dozen or so Nakai on the stage weren't wearing white lab coats, but given the way they milled around, looking at pieces of tech, conferring with each other, and preparing their tools, they might as well have been. They were clearly scientists, and Greer would have found it hilarious that scientific research was a spectator sport for these aliens if he hadn't caught sight of the _subject_ of their research.

Rush was in the middle of the stage, flat out on a table with his shirts off and his wings - oh Jesus, his _wings_ \- stretched out and secured to either side of a crossbar that ran perpendicular to the table.

An angel on a horizontal cross. That was all kinds of wrong.

One of the Nakai walked to the table and touched a long finger to something small and metalic that was attached to Rush's forehead. Rush's head rolled listlessly away from the alien in a wordless refusal, and the Nakai responded by injecting something into his bare arm. For a few minutes the alien just stood there, watching Rush while he lay still. And then Rush cried out, half-curling in on himself as his skin began to warp and change. Patches of flesh turned blue and translucent, and then the shape of his skull elongated and his arms turned slender and bony. He writhed, screaming, but the transformation unravelled almost as soon as it began. For a few seconds his body was caught somewhere between human and Nakai, but the human side was clearly winning. A little longer and it was over. He was Rush again, fully Rush, but he was breathing so hard that his whole body jerked with it, and he was still letting out strangled little moans with every breath.

That was when Young began to move. He stepped forward slowly, as if in a daze, and let his rifle slip from his fingers. It clattered to the ground at Greer's feet, just as Young started unbuckling his tactical vest. That, too was discarded, as was his jacket a few steps later, followed at last by his shirt.

Young stopped just in front of the railing and looked down. The figures on the stage finally seemed to become aware of his presence, because they all looked up to meet his gaze. As he stood there, just staring down at Rush and his tormentors, a ripple ran across the skin of his back and a pair of black-and-gold wings began to emerge from it. As they grew and stretched out, the air over Young's head exploded into a spinning disc of golden flames. Little tongues of fire curled through his hair, spread over his shoulders, danced across his wings, and licked up from the ground under his boots as if they were a part of him.

Greer wanted to step forward. He wanted to see Young's face and take a guess at what the _hell_ was going through the colonel's mind right now, because _Jesus Christ_ , this wasn't what he'd been expecting when he'd found out about the whole angel thing. Even given that little taste of heat and ash in Young's quarters earlier, he hadn't guessed… he hadn't known. Now he felt like he couldn't move, could hardly _breathe_. Every part of him was waiting, straining to see what Young would do next.

What Young did was run a hand across the strip of railing in front of him. Then he gripped the metal bar and tore it free, leaving nothing but open air between him and the stage below. For a moment, Greer assumed that Young would toss aside the twisted piece of metal as he had thrown off his gear, but the colonel held onto it. In his hand, it transformed into a longsword that glowed red-hot as if it had just been drawn from a forge. Then the blade caught fire, and the air in the auditorium began to pulse with a terrifying energy.

The paralysis that had held everyone but Young in its grip suddenly eased. Greer found that he could move again, but he no longer knew if he wanted to. He couldn't walk up to that burning, radiant creature any more than he could give into the little voice in his head that begged him to turn tail and run. Nakai were screaming and stampeding toward the doors all around him, but he ignored them, even when they jostled him in their flight. His eyes were still fixed on his commander.

Young brought his sword forward to grip it with both hands. Then he took one more step and flung himself over the edge of the balcony.


	4. Judgment

Rush didn't let himself hope for a rescue. The thought of Michael's promised visit didn't so much as enter his head, because he wouldn't allow it to. The Nakai were in his mind constantly, sifting through fragments of memory, stray wisps of emotion, snatches of music, and bits and pieces of calculations. The mental touch of their technology-based telepathy was oily and insidious; it sucked the joy from every good thing it encountered, leaving Rush's mind a barren wasteland. Michael was a comfort he couldn't afford, because it might truly break him to see it destroyed.

He didn't think of Young either, simply because there was no point. He wasn't sure exactly how many days it had been since he was kidnapped, but it didn't really matter. No one from Destiny would come to save him from this huge city inhabited by hostile aliens. It would be complete madness to attempt it. Young would never take the risk, even if by some miracle he knew where Rush was being held. Mortal lives were his priority - he'd made that clear to Rush before. He wasn't coming.

Rush did think of Gloria sometimes. Her memory was already wrapped up in so much grief and guilt that the Nakai couldn't taint it further. And if Rush was going to endure mental torture, he'd rather do it wrapped in her phantom embrace than alone and desolate.

But most of the time, Rush tried to think of nothing at all, because that was what frustrated his captors the most. They wanted to tease out every scrap of information he had, all the Ancient knowledge buried in his head where he could not access it, and everything he'd ever learned throughout his life in heaven and on Earth. Sometimes they got an alluring glimpse of a blueprint for one of his old inventions, or details about the German Lorenz cipher, or his (incorrect) calculations for dialing the nine chevron address - useless bits of information that could do no harm to anyone, and which only seemed to make the aliens hungry for more data.

His brain was healing slowly. He knew his language skills must be improving when the Nakai's unbeautiful tongue began to sound less like clicks and chirps and staccato screeches and more like words and phrases and sentences. Language barriers didn't exist for angels who weren't fallen (or brain damaged), and that certainly worked in his favor now. He could listen in on their conversations, pick up details that they didn't mean for him to know, and they would never be the wiser. They were under the mistaken impression that he must take on a Nakai disguise in order to understand them without telepathy. Well, they were wrong.

The mention of a Nakai disguise did give him pause, though. What an unpleasant thought _that_ was. It came up again later when his captors took a break from their 'interrogation' of his mind and made it clear what they wanted from him. They had once had a Nakai angel on this planet, but he was gone now. They wanted another one. Rush was to be their new sage and counselor, a bringer of wisdom and an object of reverence. They had been waiting a long time for him.

That was when Rush discovered that his mutism had healed. He couldn't form words yet, but he could shout inarticulately, and he did so, angrily and at length. The obscenities were implied.

It was after that that the injections started. The drugs made his body feel strange, like he was floating, and his limbs grew heavy and numb. His mind opened up more readily, letting a few more secrets slip through the gaps in his mental armor, but nothing of real strategic value. The worst part was that the drugs made his mind more open to suggestion. Under their influence, he found himself lazily capitulating to the Nakai's psychic urgings to set his wings free. Then, once they were exposed, he found that the drugs made impossible for him to put them away again.

The Nakai scientists exclaimed over his wings, but they didn't sound particularly pleased. They apparently found the shape and color of them disappointing.

Fuck them anyway.

The aliens were clearly hoping that his wings would turn blue as soon as he took on a Nakai disguise. No such luck, not that he had any intention of letting them find out. He didn't want to wear one of their spindly blue bodies, especially since he wasn't quite sure what would happen to his human disguise once he dropped it. Would he be able to get it back again, exactly as it was, or would it look different next time? He liked this body. He was used to it. Gloria had known him in this form, and so had Young. He would never see either of them again, and yet it _mattered_.

So when the Nakai started exerting pressure to make him change his disguise, he defied them. Even when they tried to use Chloe as leverage to secure his obedience, he still resisted, albeit more cautiously. He carefully schooled his thoughts and allowed the aliens to think that he was trying to comply, but that he was still too brain-damaged to manage it. He'd never thought that his impairment would come in handy, but it did now. The Nakai could see that he had suffered a brain injury, and it didn't take much effort to make them believe that it was holding back his transformation. So they stopped threatening Chloe and approached the problem from a different angle. They began to experiment with different drugs and different techniques for invading and influencing his mind. That was fine, for a little while. And then it was less fine. And then it was terrifying, because the experiments began to produce measurable results.

Rush could feel his mind cracking at the edges. His thoughts were brittle, his sense of self hazy. They were about to break through, and then who knew what would be left of him then? An empty shell, capable only of doing what they wanted? That seemed increasingly likely.

Over the next few days, Rush's body contorted again and again in an excruciating partial-transformation. The scientists had moved him from a small laboratory onto a brightly-lit stage, so now their experiments took place under thousands of hopeful alien eyes. The Nakai spectators eagerly watched Rush writhe and scream. They were waiting for the moment when he ceased to be himself and became whatever the hell it was that they wanted.

He could feel that moment approaching rapidly.

Maybe the only way to preserve even a tiny piece of himself was to give in now, before he reached the breaking point. Maybe if he gave up his body and most of his secrets, the Nakai would let him keep his name. He'd waited so long to have a name of his own - it would be a pity to lose that along with everything else. Who would he be if not Doctor Nicholas Rush? He didn't want to know.

So as he lay panting and staring up at the colorful lights on the ceiling after his latest torture session, the thought of surrender floated through his mind. It would be so much easier to just give in. It would be rational too, because what was the point of fighting when defeat was guaranteed? He should be smart about this. If he cooperated now, maybe escape would become an option sometime in the future. It was really his only choice.

He couldn't let himself hope for a rescue. It was too late for that.

Rush was too dazed with pain and exhaustion to notice at first when the Nakai around his table began to scurry about and gesticulate and mutter agitatedly amongst themselves. But when an enormous pair of wings sailed across his vision, blotting out the lights above, Rush finally woke up to the fact that something was happening. He raised his head and watched in blank astonishment as the flying figure swooped down toward the stage.

He couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. He knew this angel. He was intimately acquainted with his scorched plumage, his rugged features, his dark hair, and his strong, compact frame. But he also knew those glowing tawny eyes, that spinning halo of golden fire, that searing aura of unfathomable power, and most of all, that iconic burning blade.

Was he hallucinating now? Had the last of his mental barriers come down at last, unleashing this jumbled vision of a rescuer who was neither Young nor Michael, yet somehow a combination of both?

The angel touched down on the stage, and the air around him became hazy with heat.  He moved with liquid grace, swinging his sword in a wide arc that cleaved the heads from two unfortunate Nakai scientists at once. The rest of the aliens scattered in all directions, but the angel clearly had no intention of letting any of them escape. Flames leapt up all around the edges of the stage, ensnaring a few fleeing scientists and caging the rest. The air grew hotter, and fire rained down from the ceiling in liquid drops that sizzled on the ground and drew screams of pain from the Nakai, but which only felt like soft kisses of warmth against Rush's chilled skin.

Beyond the ring of fire, the Nakai spectators were running for their lives. They were caught under the same shower of burning liquid as the scientists, but at least they had some hope of escape. The golden angel - Young or Michael, Rush was still confused on that point - seemed uninterested in them. His full attention was on the scientists.

The angel herded his terrified prey away from Rush's table and then he stalked them, slowly, cruelly. A burst of speed and a few swings of his blade would have been enough to end the encounter, but he was drawing it out. He was enjoying his enemies' fear. The air was thick with his power, and in spite of the brilliant blaze that encircled them, in spite of the golden glow of the flames that leapt from his sword, there was something dark about that energy.

Rush had never really thought about what it meant for one of the Host to fall. He'd never considered what it would look like when the light of holy fire mingled with darkness in a strange, unharmonious marriage. It was no wonder that fallen members of the Host lost the entirety of their memories, while other fallen angels could hope to retain at least a bit of their former knowledge. The angels of the Host were noble and glorious, but they were deadly. And Michael… Michael was the most dangerous of all.

If this _was_ Michael. If this was real, and not some sick fever dream heralding the collapse of Rush's sanity.

The angel finally struck, thrusting the point of his sword home in a Nakai's chest and wrenching it free in one fluid motion. He rounded on two more scientists, but in their panic they chose to risk running through the perimeter of flames rather than face his sword, so he let them go. Neither made it through to the other side. He continued to hack his way through the rest of the Nakai on stage, at times terrifying in his anger and at other times even more so in his cold impassivity. By the time all the scientists were dead, soldiers had begun to pour into the auditorium. The angel leapt off the stage and dove into their midst, killing with more efficiency now that his opponents' numbers were greater. Rush couldn't see most of the action from his vantage point, but he didn't much care. He'd seen enough slaughter and he'd smelled enough charred flesh for one day. He closed his eyes.

He opened them again when the roar of the inferno died down to a soft crackle. Heavy steps sounded on the stage, and then his rescuer was standing over him.

The angel's halo dimmed and winked out, and his eyes turned from gold to hazel. The sword in his hand transformed into a twisted piece of metal. He glanced down at it, perplexed. Then he dropped it and wiped his palms on his uniform trousers before meeting Rush's gaze.

It was the look of bewilderment in Young's eyes which convinced Rush that this was no hallucination. This was real. Young was here, and Young was _Michael_.

"Are you okay?" Young asked as he peered down at Rush. His eyes flicked to the restraints that held Rush's legs, arms, and wings immobile. "I'm going to get you out of this. Just a moment."

Rush let out a soft, wordless sound in acknowledgement. He was still feeling overwhelmed by all he had just seen and discovered, but there was a trace of affectionate amusement winding its way through the chaos in his head. From what Rush had heard of Michael's battle prowess, that cataclysmic spectacle had been very much in character for him. But how like the steady, methodical Young to turn immediately to practical considerations in the aftermath. Rush had never loved either of them more than he did in that moment.

"You've got your voice back," Young observed as he unbuckled the sturdy leather straps that bound Rush's wrists. "That seems like a good sign. Can you understand me?"

Rush nodded.

"Good. That's good." Young freed Rush's legs, and then turned to examine the larger straps which pinned Rush's wings to the crossbar. Rush knew his feathers were in complete disorder, and he wasn't surprised when Young's eyes briefly flashed gold again in anger. But Young's touch was gentle as he carefully unbuckled the straps. He ran his fingers through the ruffled feathers to fix the worst of the damage, drawing a grateful sigh from Rush.

"You're okay," Young murmured, using one hand to stroke Rush's feathers while he reached up to take the small metal transmitter off of Rush's forehead with the other. He tossed the device aside and ran his thumb over the slight mark it had left on Rush's forehead. His eyes glistened with emotion, and his voice was hoarse as he added, "Fuck, Rush, I never thought I'd see you again."

Rush blinked away a bit of moisture from his own eyes and exhaled a shuddering breath. With shaky arms he pushed himself upright on the table, and then he half-leaned, half-snuggled up against Young's bare chest. Under pungent notes of sweat and smoke, Young smelled like Destiny, and Rush's heart leapt at this reminder of his home, his purpose. Young wrapped his arms around Rush and rested his cheek against his head. Rush didn't know how long they remained like that. He would have happily gone to sleep in this position, lulled by the drugs in his veins and Young's heartbeat in his ears.

"Can you speak at all?" Young finally murmured into Rush's hair.

Rush wasn't actually sure. He hadn't made the attempt to say anything for several days. He tried it now, and blurted out, "Michael," which wasn't what he had intended to say at all. He tried again. "Michael." Okay, so he apparently had a one-word vocabulary at the moment. Brilliant.

Young pulled away and met Rush's eyes with a heavy frown. "N-no, Rush," he said gently. "It's just me. It's Young."

Rush rubbed at his forehead and tried to concentrate. His mind felt sluggish, but he could hear the words he wanted to say, could practically taste them on his tongue. Perhaps if he started small, he would be successful. So he tried to say, "I know," and for a moment he thought he had managed it, but judging by the deepening look of concern in Young's eyes, he'd just called him Michael again. Well, this was definitely a problem. Young obviously didn't understand why Michael's name had leapt so readily to Rush's lips. Even after killing dozens of Nakai with holy fire and a flaming sword manifested from his own power, he still didn't make the connection between himself and the archangel.

Former archangel. Michael had fallen. _Michael had fallen_.

Rush was going to have to revisit that thought some other time, because right now he had more important things to worry about. Young had cupped his warm, strong hands around Rush's face and was now looking into his eyes as if he was trying to read the thoughts behind them. Which gave Rush an idea, but… perhaps that should wait until later, too.

"What's wrong with you?" Young whispered. "What did they do to you, Rush?"

Rush focused on the feel of Young's fingertips against his temples. He didn't want to think about what the Nakai had done to him. He wanted to bask in this moment and enjoy these touches and know that he was safe, just for a little while.

"Rush?"

But Young needed reassurance, and Rush needed to find a way to give it to him. Inspiration struck, and he tapped lightly on the center of Young's chest. Then he held up both of his hands, palms out, fingers splayed, and thumbs linked in his 'wings' sign. Surely Young would recognize that.

Young looked down at his hands, blinked once, and then his frown slowly transformed into a fond smile. "Yeah," he said softly, "that's right. You know who I am."

Rush nodded.

"Good." Young's voice was warm with relief. He ruffled Rush's hair. "We'll work on your language skills later."

Rush gave a half-hearted murmur of protest at the small indignity, but he couldn't repress a smile.

"Sir?" Greer's voice jolted Rush out of the little world in which he and Young had been the sole occupants, and back into reality. Greer was standing on the edge of the stage, and there was something unusually solemn about his demeanor. His eyes glowed with an unmistakable reverence as he gazed at Young.

Rush experienced a vague twinge of uneasiness. It hadn't occurred to him before now that Young hadn't come alone. How many of Destiny's crewmembers had just witnessed that terrifying display of power? He looked around the huge auditorium and spotted two indistinct figures in BDUs at the far end the center aisle on the lowest level, standing in front of the door amidst piles of Nakai bodies. Two more figures were positioned up on the highest balcony near a gap in the railing. He couldn't tell who they were, but that didn't really matter. The secret was out now regardless.

Young's face was unreadable, but Rush noted that the muscles of his shoulders and neck were suddenly tense. The implications of what had just happened were finally hitting him, too. "Yes, Sergeant?"

"Just heard from James," Greer said. "Her team is on level 62 now, but they haven't found Chloe yet. She said they were delayed by a Nakai ambush."

"Everyone okay?" Young asked.

"I hear the aliens aren't doing too good."

Young's lips twitched. "It's really not their day, is it?"

"No, sir," Greer glanced around the charred stage, "I reckon it isn't."

Young nodded, his brief smile dying. He suddenly looked preoccupied and maybe somewhat tired as well. He rolled his shoulders and his wings began to sink into his back. When they were tucked out of sight once more, Young asked, "Where's my gear?"

Greer nodded up at the highest balcony. "Brody's got it."

"Right. We should start making our way back to the ship."

Rush frowned at the back of Young's head, wondering what ship he was talking about. How had they gotten here, anyway? Had they flown here in the shuttle? If so, wouldn't Young have said 'shuttle' instead of 'ship?' How had they even known to search for Rush here?

It didn't matter. They were here, and they were going take him back to Destiny. His questions would keep until later.

Rush scooted himself to the edge of the table and slid off of it ungracefully. Young turned and caught him around the waist before his shaky legs could collapse out from under him.

"Whoa, hey, you okay?" Young murmured. "Are you sure you can stand?"

Rush sure as hell wasn't going to let himself be carried out of here, so he _would_ stand, somehow. His legs were trembling, weakened by the drugs, but after a few seconds they grew a bit steadier. He nodded at Young, and Young released him, staying close in case he needed to catch him again.

"Can you put your wings away?" Young asked.

Rush tried, but it seemed he lacked the dexterity and concentration necessarily for the task. He folded his wings tightly to his back instead and shook his head.

"Okay. No big deal. Cat's out of the bag anyway."

Rush snorted. He looked up to find that Greer had moved closer. He was now eyeing Rush with an expression that Rush couldn't quite decipher. "You okay, Doc?"

Rush blinked at him. Was Greer being _nice_ to him? He nodded slowly, starting to feel like he had tumbled into a bizarre alternate reality. Young was Michael. Greer was being civilized. If he got back to Destiny and found that Volker had turned into a competent and valuable member of the science team, he would know for sure.

"That's good." Greer flashed him a small smile and walked away.

Young started to follow Greer toward the top of the stairs that led down to the center aisle, but he paused to look back over his shoulder at Rush. There was a question in his eyes, an obvious 'can you make it?' Rush put one foot in front of the other and found that yes, he could walk by his own power, although by no means quickly.

He looked around and spotted the Nakai's transmitter on the ground where Young had tossed it. The receiver was sitting on one of the instrument tables, mercifully unscathed after the battle. Rush retrieved both and tucked them safely away in one of his back pockets before he joined Young.

Young quirked an eyebrow at him, but he didn't ask any questions. He just wrapped a bracing hand around Rush's biceps and helped him slowly down the stairs.

 

* * *

 

When someone shattered the glass of Chloe's prison, lifted her sodden body free from the wreckage, and tore her breathing apparatus from her face, all she could think was, _Not again_. She had been through this so many times already. Every time she began to think that this time it was real, _this time_ she was actually being rescued, her sick captors would give the dream a twist, changing it into a nightmare. She was tired of playing along. She had promised herself, the last time she'd seen Matt's smiling face contort into that of a snarling Nakai, she wouldn't let herself be fooled again.

But when she finally opened her eyes and found herself looking up at Lieutenant James, she suffered a moment of complete disorientation. Wait, no. This wasn't how the hallucination went. It was supposed to be Matt. It was _always_ Matt. That was what hurt the most, so that's why the Nakai chose him.

Had they sensed that she was done cooperating and decided to take a new approach?

"Chloe?" James said. "Are you all right?"

"You're supposed to be Matt," Chloe mumbled.

The warm look of concern in James's eyes turned to bitter amusement. "Yeah, well… Colonel Young left Scott in charge of Destiny, so you'll have to make do with me."

"Colonel Young is here?"

"That's right. His team went to get Rush."

That… actually made a lot more sense, Chloe mused. Young _would_ want to rescue Rush himself. And if Young was here, of course Matt would have to stay behind on Destiny. Why hadn't she thought of that before?

Maybe this was real after all. Or maybe the Nakai had just gotten smarter and were using new tactics to try to draw her into the same mental trap.

"I don't know if this is real," she said in a small voice. Maybe she shouldn't have admitted that out loud. Maybe the aliens would found it amusing. Maybe they were laughing at her even now as she tried to find purchase within her own mind, teetering on the edge of dreams and reality.

James had one arm under Chloe's body, cradling her. Chloe heard the clunk of a weapon being set down on the floor, and then James used her free hand to brush a clump of damp hair from Chloe's face. She frowned at Chloe's forehead, and then reached up to gently remove the transmitter. She held it up for Chloe to see. "What's this?"

"That's how they get in my head," Chloe said.

"Well, it's gone now." James tossed it back over her shoulder. "This is real."

"Matt always takes it off." Chloe closed her eyes and frowned deeply, trying to make sense of her sluggish, jumbled thoughts. "It doesn't mean anything."

There was a crunch of footsteps on shattered glass nearby, and then someone pressed two fingers against her throat. When Chloe opened her eyes, Corporal Barnes was leaning over her. "Her pulse is a little slow," Barnes told James, "and her breathing, too." Then she flashed a penlight in Chloe's eyes.

Chloe grunted in protest, but she tried to keep her eyes open. This had never happened in any of her dreams before, and there was something extremely reassuring in the normality of it. Of course someone would check her vitals when they rescued her. The Nakai had forgotten that detail too.

"Did they give you something?" Barnes asked as she turned off the penlight. "Any sedatives? Do you know?"

"I… think there were injections at one point? There's a lot I don't remember," Chloe said.

"Chloe," James said softly, "I know you're confused, but we're here. This is really happening. Can you try to trust me? I'm going to take you to Colonel Young, and then we'll all go back to Destiny."

Chloe had promised herself she wouldn't let the Nakai take advantage of her anymore. She wouldn't let them jerk her around, fill her up with hope, squeeze out a few more of her secrets before she caught on to their deception. She was exhausted and jaded and she didn't trust this, not really. No one was coming to rescue her. She and Rush were on their own in this horrible place.

But what if she was wrong? What if this was real? Couldn't she risk it one more time, just to be sure?

"Chloe?" James murmured.

"Help me up," Chloe said, struggling to sit upright.

"Good girl." James flashed a grin and assisted her to stand. "Let's go."

 

* * *

 

The trip back to the docks was uneventful. Much too uneventful. Young had been expecting Nakai reinforcements to arrive any second, and he'd been wondering how exactly he was supposed to deal with them when he wasn't even sure how he'd killed the Nakai in the auditorium. Manifesting that sword and that fire had felt natural in the moment. He had been so angry that something had snapped in his mind and he'd let old, long-forgotten instincts take over. But now he was himself again, and he was frightened. There was a real possibility that all he had done was royally piss off the Nakai and that they would be out for revenge.

So where _were_ they?

His team was ill-prepared for another encounter. They were shaken by what they had seen, and he could hardly blame them, because there was a fine tremor in his own hands that wouldn't go away. There had been questions, disjointed and breathless, but he'd cut through them all by saying, "Later. We need to get out of here first." So the humans were keeping quiet about it, but their eyes were still wide with shock, and they kept shooting covert glances in his direction as if they expected him to burst into flames at any moment.

They reached their stolen ship and Young settled into the pilot's station with a sense of relief. This was something he knew, a skill he had acquired in _this_ lifetime, and the familiarity of it was a comfort. Rush claimed the right console, and Brody took the comms station. Then they waited.

James's team took another ten minutes to arrive, and in that time there was still no attack from the Nakai. Young's unease was growing steadily, because this was way too easy. The aliens would never just _let_ them leave, would they? He couldn't have scared them _that_ much.

Then James's team was there, Chloe in tow, and he prepared the ship for take-off. As the engines flared to life, Chloe poked her head into the cockpit. He couldn't see her standing behind his chair, but he heard her softly uttered, "Rush," and then Rush was looking up, glancing back toward the doorway, and smiling sweetly.

"Chloe," Rush said, warm and pleased, and of course he could say _Chloe's_ name just fine, even though 'Young' was beyond him. Typical.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Rush nodded.

"Good. I, uh, brought the rest of your clothes.  I guess…" there was a pause, "I guess you can't wear them right now."

Rush shrugged and shook his head, his smile turning rueful.  His wings were still folded against his back with the ends draped on either side of his chair. He looked so perfectly natural that Young could almost let himself forget that there was anything out of the ordinary about the situation.

In the back of the ship, Young could hear snatches of whispered conversation about Rush's wings and Young's actions in the auditorium. He was glad to have most of his attention absorbed in flying the ship as he steered out of the docks. He didn't what to know what kind of spin his team was putting on the story.

Pretty soon, everyone would know. No more hiding.

They were retracing their earlier flight through the Nakai city, which was even more striking in the twilight, when Rush made a sharp, urgent noise. He gesticulated at Brody and pointed at his screen. Brody left his station and joined Rush at his.

"Yeah, that's another Destiny," he said. "Didn't the colonel tell you? We think it must be from another dimension. It's definitely the same ship. Same stargate."

Rush made an impatient sound and tapped at his screen.

"Oh no," Brody muttered, finally catching on to whatever Rush was showing him. "No, no, no. That's not good."

"What's going on?" Young asked.

"Rush pointed the sensors at the Nakai's Destiny and it picked up eight transport ships all over the hull. And… yup, looks like there are more en route."

"Eight ships," Young muttered. "That's well over a hundred Nakai."

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence, and then Brody said, "Yeah, but… you can take them, right?"

 _I have no idea_. Young thought. Then another thought occurred to him, and his stomach clenched with a new, sickening fear. "Can they dial our Destiny?"

Brody blew out a breath. "Theoretically? Yeah. But they'd have to know our gate address, and I doubt they would've leapt to the conclusion that it's the same as theirs."

"They don't know," Chloe said from behind Young. He hadn't realized that she was still in the doorway. "They think the two ships are sister ships. They interrogated me about it, but I didn't know anything."

So most likely, the Nakai were amassing an army to prevent Young from taking Rush home, not to board the other Destiny through the gate. Thank fuck for small favors. That made this decision a lot simpler.  "I need to know where our Destiny is now. I don't need exact coordinates - just close enough to get her on our sensors."

"Wait… what?" Brody sputtered.

"We're not going back through the gate," Young said. He gave the flight controls a proprietary caress, and then pointed the little ship's nose to the sky. The engines roared as it picked up speed. Beyond the afterglow of the sleeping sun, a few winking stars beckoned them home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> April 26: I am taking a hiatus and will not be updating this fic tonight. I hope to post Chapter 5 next weekend, but I'm not making any promises at this point. Work, health problems, and other sources of stress have kept me from working on this fic much in the past week and I'm not sure it will get better in the coming week. I need to take care of myself for a little while, and then the angels will be back. Thanks for understanding.


	5. Exposure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this a couple days early as a thank you for everyone's patience. I plan to post the last chapter on May 10/11.

The disadvantage of space travel in comparison to gate travel was, of course, that space travel was considerably slower. Young's stolen ship seemed to have an excellent range for a craft of its size, but it wasn't that much faster than Destiny's shuttles, relatively speaking. The hours had crawled by since they'd left the Nakai planet, which was fine - according to Brody's and Rush's calculations, they would reach Destiny in plenty of time to latch on before she leapt into FTL again. But all this empty time was slowly driving Young to the edge of insanity.

The last thing he wanted to do right now was think, and yet there was nothing else to do. Rush was quietly absorbed in some sort of work at his station, and it wasn't like he could carry on a decent conversation right now, anyway. Brody was also trying to make himself busy, but he looked like he was doing a less successful job of it. Out of the corner of his eye, Young saw Brody's hands tremble as he manipulated data on the holographic touchscreen before him.

In the back of the ship, low-voiced conversations droned on endlessly, punctuated occasionally by Greer's strong, steady voice. Young felt better knowing that Greer was back there to keep everyone calm. Riley too, because his way of showing distress was through quiet sarcasm, and that was infinitely preferable to panic. At the very least, no one had stormed the cockpit yet to demand answers or attempt to throw the scary non-humans out of the hatch, so that seemed promising.

But fuck, he could use some kind of distraction right now. His mind kept drifting back to that moment on the balcony when everything had gone still within him and he had known exactly what to do. He had summoned up that fire like it was second nature to him. He had torn off that piece of railing and channeled his molten power into it until it had become a familiar, comfortable weapon. And then he had spread his wings and flown without a care for any of the thunderstruck eyes upon him. He'd had nothing to fear. He'd only been doing what he'd done countless times before.

But when it was over and the power had left him, it had all felt a bit like a dream. A terrible, blood-soaked dream that left the smell of death in his nostrils and the taste of ashes on his tongue. Even now, he kept trying to convince himself that it hadn't really happened. There must be some other explanation for why Rush was sitting beside him, and why all Young's people were treating him so differently. He couldn't really have slaughtered dozens of aliens single-handedly with a flaming sword. That sort of thing didn't happen.

And Rush couldn't really have called him Michael. Out of everything that had occurred, that was the part Young most wanted to forget. That name filled him with a sense of being dragged toward a precipice where half-remembered voices and snatches of martial melodies invited him into a terrifying freefall. He could see it now, barren ground falling away into a yawning chasm with nothing but cinders and ugly truths at the bottom. And on that ledge above the darkness, the wind was a whisper in his ears, subtle in strength and silver of tongue as it told him, _'Holy fire is a double-edged sword.'_

"Okay," Brody spoke up suddenly, and Young was back in the cockpit, staring at the image of stars against a dark void through the window. There was no wind - only a soft sigh from Rush at his side.

Young swallowed, willed his pulse to steady itself, and repeated, "Okay?"

"Okay. I need someone to give me something to do. I just… I need something to do," Brody said. His voice shook slightly.

Young sympathized with that request. Rush, on the other hand, responded with a sound that was a half-inquiring, half-contemptuous.

"It's too much. I'm sitting right here trying to keep it together but it's _too much_. I can't--"

"Calm down, Brody," Young said.

"I'm calm!" Brody practically shouted, his voice cracking. Then he drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said in a much more reasonable tone, "I'm calm."

"Good man."

"I just, you know… never really believed in that stuff. God and angels. I don't know the standard protocol for dealing with them."

 _Join the club_ , Young thought. Every new thing he learned about himself and his people just confused and daunted him more. "I don't think there is one."

"Oh, that's great," Brody muttered.

Rush gave an exasperated sigh and rose to his feet. He walked behind Young's chair and reached over Brody's shoulder to tap on the comms screen.

"What are you--?" Brody started, but then he settled down and watched what Rush was doing in attentive silence. A few minutes passed, and then he huffed as if struck by a realization. "Oh, I see what you mean. We'd better do something about." His voice was considerably calmer now, and Young could see in his peripheral vision that his hands had steadied.

Rush hummed in agreement.

"Looks like it's accessible under the deck plating right about where you're standing. I'll need my tools."

Well, at least Young could be comforted by his science team's familiar habit of running five steps ahead of him with no efforts on their part to communicate their findings. His current state of unenlightenment was so bracingly normal that it helped him to shake off the lingering effects of his bizarre waking dream. "Before you go prying up the deck, want to tell me what's going on?" he asked dryly.

"The comms station is emitting a subspace signal that the Nakai can use to track this ship," Brody said. "I should have thought of that possibility earlier."

Fuck. Young should have too. He was really losing it today.

"I'll have to disable the tracking device manually," Brody continued, "but if I do it right we shouldn't lose any other functionality, and we'll be able to keep the ship."

"Sounds good," Young said. Keeping the ship was great - he was all for that. But he hated to think that he'd been blithely leading the Nakai right back to Destiny just for the sake of holding onto his new toy.

Brody retrieved his pack and started rummaging around in it for his tools. Apparently, useful occupation really was all he had needed to calm down, because he was acting much more like himself again. Rush was to be congratulated for his handling of the situation, although it was possible that he'd brought up the tracking device at this specific moment just to shut Brody up.

A few minutes later, the clank and scrape of metal on metal as Brody pried up sections of deck plating drew Greer to the cockpit. "Everything all right up here?" he asked from the doorway. His tone was an easy mixture of cool confidence and quiet respect - in other words, no different from usual.

"Just fine," Young said. Since the ship was more or less flying itself at the moment, he hazarded a glance back over his shoulder to see Greer's face.

Greer was looking down at Brody and Rush, who were both crouched on the floor next to the new hole in the deck. The ends of Rush's folded wings covered most of the available floor space in the cockpit, and Greer's gaze lingered for a moment on their distinctive storm cloud pattern. Then he raised his eyes to Young's face. He looked serene - peaceful in a way Young had rarely seen him. The last time he'd seen that look on Greer's face, it was when he'd thought he was about to burn up in a star. Young wasn't sure what that said about Greer's view of _him_.

"How is everyone doing back there?" he asked.

"Talking their heads off, but no one's making trouble."

That wasn't quite as informative as Young had hoped, but at least now he knew the team wasn't plotting a mutiny back there. "They'll get their answers soon. Then the shit will really hit the fan."

"Anyone has a problem with it? They can talk to me," Greer said, and his tone suggested that there would more than talking involved in that encounter. "As for me, I'm just glad you're on our side, sir."

Young swallowed, overwhelmed and slightly terrified by the Greer's apparent faith in him. He couldn't possibly live up to it. The knowledge of his own fallen status weighed on him, squashing the joy that Greer's words should have inspired. So he just nodded in response.

Greer smiled and ducked out of the doorway. Young turned his attention back to front window and let Brody's soft mutterings and Rush's wordless responses wash over him as he stared into space.

 

* * *

 

With all the walking Scott had done between the gate room and the control interface room in the past 24 hours, it was really a wonder he hadn't worn a hole in the deck yet. The gate room had remained dark ever since Young reported in and sent Metner through for medical treatment, but Scott still felt the occasional need to poke his head in, as if his presence alone would cause the gate to dial and bring the away team home. There wasn't much reason to visit the control interface room either - Eli, Dr. Volker, and Dr. Park would report anything he needed to know via radio - but he was headed in that direction anyway.

He supposed he ought to catch a few hours of sleep, or maybe go for a run to clear his head. But the truth was, he still felt like he ought to be out there, searching for Chloe and Rush with the colonel. He suspected that the only reason Young had insisted that he stay here is because he thought there was a very real possibility his team wouldn't make it back. And that… that was something Scott couldn't let himself think about right now.

He was one corridor away from the control interface room when Camile caught up with him. "It's been almost eighteen hours since Young reported in," she said, falling into step beside him. "We're just a few hours away from jumping to FTL."

"I can read the clock, Camile. Thanks," Scott muttered.

She shot him a sidelong look that was somehow both unamused and pitying at the same time. "What I'm _saying_ is that it might be time to start discussing what we're going to do if the team doesn't make back."

He stopped short and swung around to face her. "They're going to make it back," he said, beating back the anxiety that made his voice want to tremble, " _with_ Chloe and Rush."

"Believe me, I want that just as much as you do, but--"

"Matt?" Eli's voice come through the radio, interrupting Camile. "You're needed in the CI room."

Scott and Camile exchanged an uneasy look. There was something in Eli's tone that didn't bode well.

"I'm on my way, Eli," Scott said into his radio, and then he started walking again. Camile followed.

When he arrived, he found Volker and Park standing side-by-side in front of a holoscreen, their bodies blocking his view of what it displayed. They had both assumed thoughtful poses, although Volker's back was a bit straighter than usual and Park's shoulders were tensed and bowed. They were worried about something, but not panicking. That was a marginally hopeful sign. Eli was at one of the consoles, frowning in concentration at the screen. Again, his posture conveyed a certain sense of disquiet, but he didn't look overly alarmed.

"What have we got?" Scott asked, approaching Eli's console.

Park turned toward him. "Another alien ship," she said. "The design suggests it was made by the same aliens that attacked us before."

"What?" Camile said sharply.

"It's just a small one," Eli said without looking up from his screen, "and it's still pretty far out. We just picked it up on our short-range sensors. It could have friends still out of range, but… I don't know. That would be a pretty inefficient way to attack us.."

"He's right," Volker said, glancing back over his shoulder. "A ship that size wouldn't have any FTL capability. Without a mothership it's too vulnerable."

"It could be lost," Park suggested.

A lost, vulnerable alien ship? That sounded like an opportunity to Scott. It was possible that the occupants knew something about Chloe, or even about the colonel's team. Even if they didn't, they might prove useful. They might at least be able to tell him why they kept attacking Destiny and her crew.

"Contact them," he told Eli.

"And say what?" Eli asked, looking skeptical.

"How about… 'Surrender?'" Scott suggested.

Eli blinked at him. Then his lips quirked. "Yeah. That works," he said as he started typing.

"Is that really wise?" Camile asked.

"I guess we'll find out," Scott said.

Less than a minute after the message was sent, Eli made an inarticulate noise of surprise. "They answered in English again. They say they'll surrender."

"Wait, really?" Volker said from across the room. "Just like that?"

"Is that all they said?" Camile asked.

"Yes, they--" Eli broke off, leaning over the console. "Wait there's another message." He tapped on a few buttons, and then he let out a hoot of delighted laughter. "It says, 'Sorry for delay - we were cut off from the gate and had to find an alternate escape route. Kindly don't shoot at us. Rush and Chloe say hi.'" He laughed again, blinking rapidly, and then he made a sound that was suspiciously close to a sob.

Scott closed his his eyes. Beside him, Camile gave a cheer, and across the room, Volker chuckled with heartfelt relief. Park's joy was quieter, but he heard her quick gasp and guessed that it was accompanied by one one of her perky, bright-eyed smiles.

Chloe was safe. And given the droll tone of the message, there was definitely reason to hope that everyone else was okay, too. It felt like an obstruction had been cleared from his lungs, and he could breathe again.

_Oh God, thank you._

 

* * *

 

Since there was really no point in drilling any new holes in Destiny's hull, Young carefully set the Nakai ship down over the existing breach near Rush's quarters. It was an odd way to dock a ship, but it worked. He opened the hatch, and his team started to disembark one at a time. When the back of the little transport was clear, Young sent Brody on ahead and then exchanged a significant look with Rush.

"You really can't put them away yet?" he asked as his gaze flicked to Rush's folded wings.

Rush frowned for a moment in concentration, scowling down at the deck as if it had personally wronged him, but then he shook his head. Still no luck there, apparently. Hopefully that wasn't going to be a permanent problem, because Destiny had definitely not been designed to accommodated winged creatures.

"Well, I guess we'll give them a show, then," Young said. "They'll enjoy that."

Rush snorted derisively.

"Yeah. I know." Young put a hand on his shoulder briefly, gave it a squeeze that probably comforted him more than it did Rush, and then made his way toward the back of the ship.  He could hear booted feet following him, and hoped that meant Rush wouldn't linger too long before making his entrance. They needed to get this over with, like ripping off a bandage.

Young dropped down into the corridor to find that, just as he had expected, a welcome party was waiting for them. Volker, Park and Eli were crowded around Brody a little ways down the hall. Chloe and Scott were embracing just outside the ring of light projected by the ship overhead. Camile stood off to one side, and she smiled faintly as she nodded to Young in greeting. It was a happy scene, and the air was thick with relief.

And then Rush dropped through the opening. The harsh glow brought out the silvery sheen in his mottled feathers and illuminated the gray highlights in his hair. He went down on one knee as he landed, wings half-unfurled for balance, and then he lifted his head.

Young wasn't sure why that image made him catch his breath, but he certainly wasn't the only one. There was absolute stillness in the corridor for the space of several seconds, and then everyone was talking at once.

"Dr. _Rush_?" Scott sputtered, releasing Chloe and stepping forward.

"It's okay, Matt," Chloe assured him at the same time Camile cried out, "Oh my God, what did they do to him?"

"Turned him into one of the X-Men, apparently," Eli muttered.

"Wow," was Volker's only contribution. Park just gaped silently.

There were more hushed murmurs and exclamations down the hall, where more crew members were arriving to greet the returning team. Young gritted his teeth and tried to ignore them all. He didn't look to see all those staring eyes fixed on his flock-mate; he didn't want to witness their horror or fascination or scientific interest when he could already imagine it well enough. His stomach clenched with distaste, and a soft internal whisper was telling him he couldn't do this, couldn't face this, while the challenging gleam in Rush's eyes told him he didn't have a choice.

"Lieutenant," Young said in an undervoice to Scott, whose mouth was still hanging open in astonishment, "I need everyone to assemble in the gate room."

Scott tore his eyes away from Rush at last and looked up at Young. "Sir?"

"Right now, Matthew."

Scott shook himself and nodded. "Yes sir," he said breathlessly. And then he was turning away, radio in hand as he communicated the order to the rest of the crew.

Rush and Camile seemed to be having a silent showdown nearby, staring at each other with a wealth of dismay on Camile's end and pure insolence on Rush's.

"He's fine, Camile," Young said, pushing back a wave of exhaustion. It was way too soon for that.

"He has _wings_ ," Camile hissed. "Clearly he isn't _fine_."

Now Rush's gaze turned resentful and bitterly amused. It must be killing him not to be able to make the scathing retort that he was undoubtedly thinking right now.

"I'm going to explain everything," Young said. "Why don't you go help round everyone up?"

Camile turned to meet his eyes. She swallowed visibly and then nodded. "Fine." She walked off down the hall, following the crowd that Scott had already started herding away, toward the gate room.

Rush made a soft, disgruntled sound.

"That's just the beginning. It all goes downhill from here, you know," Young said.

Rush snorted and bumped his shoulder into Young's. The contact was bracing, but it was gone all too soon. A moment later, Rush was striding off down the corridor.

"Gate room, Rush," Young called after him.

Rush raised a hand in acknowledgement and then disappeared around a corner.

 

* * *

 

A wave of nausea washed over Young as he approached the gate room. Everyone was assembled and waiting for him, or so Scott had just told him over the radio. Whether 'everyone' included Rush remained to be seen - it often hadn't in the past, but under the circumstances he hoped his flock-mate would stand in solidarity with him. This would be hard enough even with a friend at his side.

When Young entered the gate room, he thought at first that Rush really had abandoned him. There was no sign of him in the crowd of wide-eyed, murmuring crew members standing in front of the gate. But then Young realized that nearly everyone's eyes were tilted upward, toward the platform at the top of the stairs, and he spun around to see Rush standing there with his forearms braced against the railing and his wings loosely folded behind his back. If he realized that he was the object of everyone's nervous scrutiny, Rush gave no sign of it. His eyes were directed toward the gate, but they were unfocused. He appeared deep in thought, lost in his own little universe.

The rumbling of the crowd had grown steadily since Young had entered, but he mounted the first few steps of the left staircase and held up a hand to quiet everyone. "I understand this is confusing for all of you," he started, and then stopped, clearing his throat awkwardly. He clasped his hands behind his back and found a point somewhere slightly above the sea of scared eyes to fix his gaze. That helped a little. "Let me start by saying that there's no reason to worry about Rush's wings. The aliens didn't do that to him. He's always had them."

The murmurs began again, and if anything they sounded more alarmed than before.

"He's not human," Young spoke over them. There, that stunned everyone into silence. "He never has been. Usually he's capable of hiding his wings so as to pass for human, but the aliens did something to make that impossible, at least for now."

"What is he?" someone called out. Young thought it sounded like Dr. Morrison, but he couldn't see him in the crowd. "An alien?"

Young glanced up and found that Rush was looking down at him with a thoughtful tilt to his head and an amused quirk of his lips. He was taking this so much better than Young was, but then, he didn't have anything to be ashamed of, and he'd never been programmed to keep this part of himself hidden. He looked almost as if he was enjoying this. Rush liked secrets, but this was one he'd seemed willing shed from the moment he set foot on Destiny. It was Young who had always been terrified of what would happen if the crew knew the truth. Rush either didn't care, or he had a much more optimistic view of the outcome of this meeting than Young did.

Rush's eyes narrowed slightly, and then he raised a brow, as if to say, _Are you going to answer him?_

Young shook himself and looked back out at the crew. "He's not from Earth," he said, "so you could call him that."

"I heard he's an angel," Dr. Caine said from nearby. He was one of the people standing closest to the stairs, and he was one of the few who didn't seem upset. There was a hungry look in his eyes that Young didn't quite trust.

"Do you believe that?" he asked.

"I don't know," Caine said, smiling slightly. "I don't know what angels look like."

 _Yes you do_ , Young thought, remembering that other Rush, so tiny and striking and ethereal, so open and full of light in spite of his trauma and loneliness. The crew had taken to him immediately, adopting him as a sort of mascot. It was strange to contrast that with their current behavior toward their own Rush, eyeing him warily as if he was a threat.

"Well, I can't help you there," Young said, because he didn't feel like getting into all of that. This was confusing enough without bringing alternate timelines into it.

"Really?" Caine said, his smile widening. Whywas he _smiling_? Why did he look so serene while everyone else was either looking skeptical or freaked out? "That's funny, because I heard that you're an angel, too."

"What?" Camile said sharply. "Colonel, _what_ is going on? Do you really expect us to believe that?"

"I don't care if you believe it," Young said, raising a hand to silence the restless crowd again. It wasn't quite as effective this time. The scoffs and angry mutters were still audible as he continued, "I don't care whether you call us aliens or angels. The point is that we're here. We've been here all along. Nothing has changed."

"So it's true?" Caine said, taking two steps forward in his eagerness. "You are an angel?"

Young really hadn't intended for the word 'angel' to enter into this conversation, but now he could hear it being uttered throughout the room, and that chorus of whispers made his skin crawl. It wasn't an inclusive word, associated as it was with a mere handful of religions, and it was probable that at least half the people in this room weren't even religious in the first place. But 'angel' was the word Rush had always used, and it was apparently the word that the Ancients had used as well. There was clearly no escaping it at this point. "Yes."

"Why did you lie to us?" Camile asked, and it was as much a plea as it was a challenge. She was angry, but she was also bewildered, and that seemed to soften a few of her edges. "If you have nothing to hide now, why did you pretend to be human all along?"

Young swallowed his own anger and met her eyes steadily. It was a legitimate question, worthy of a honest answer. Maybe he couldn't explain everything - there could be no benefit in telling the crew that he was fallen, for instance - but he could stand to open up a little more. They deserved that much from him.

"I don't have any memories prior to twenty years ago," he said. "I don't remember who I was before I became Everett Young. I used to think I _was_ human - a human with wings. Then I met Rush at Icarus Base, and he told me the truth. I had trouble accepting it. Rush was ready to end the charade once we got here, but I wasn't. So the answer to your question is that I pretended to be human because I _feel_ human, and he pretended for my sake."

Camile's brow creased as she absorbed this, and she pressed her lips firmly together rather than say anything more. That seemed like a good sign, or at least not a bad one. Not yet. If she was willing to think over what he'd said, then she hadn't completely turned against him yet.

TJ was standing a little bit behind Camile. She shifted, drawing Young's attention, and he met her gaze with a sinking sensation. She was pale, and the look on her face - from her furrowed brow to her parted lips to her wide, haunted eyes - was a question and an accusation in one. He had confided so much in her back when they had been intimate, but he'd never told her this. Of course he hadn't - he hadn't even told Emily. But perhaps this wasn't how he should have let her find out. Perhaps he should have pulled her aside before this meeting, told her to truth, treated her with the respect that a friend and former lover deserved.

Well, it was too late for that now.

He watched as TJ drew in a deep, shuddering breath and let it out. Her eyes went flat and her expression neutral. She was pulling herself together, burying whatever hurt and anger she was feeling, but Young knew he was in for an uncomfortable conversation with her at some later date.

Meanwhile, the crowd was growing even more restless. The air was thick with tension, and Young wasn't quite sure what to do or say next. His position was precarious to say the least. It was obvious that many if not most of the people in the room were uneasy about the idea of being led by a non-human. He hoped he had the military's support, but even that was uncertain, given the enormity of what he had just confessed.

He had just opened his mouth to say something - just what, he hadn't quite made up his mind yet - when he heard Brody's voice. "Show them your wings!"

Young shut his mouth and glanced over at him in mild surprise. Brody was standing in a knot of people mostly consisting of the science team. As Young watched, he turned toward Volker and added in a lower voice that Young could just barely pick up, "They're pretty cool."

The request was soon taken up by other voices. Chloe called out, "Oh yes, please,"  at the same time Riley said, "You guys definitely need to see this." The other soldiers from Young's away team were nodding their heads in agreement, and Greer was grinning fiercely.

"I'd really like to see them too, sir," James said with a slight smile.

"Yeah, I'm pretty curious myself," Scott said.

Young felt the atmosphere in the room beginning to shift, subtly at first and then more noticeably as more people spoke up. His military personnel began to look more curious and less suspicious. They could be expected to follow the lead of their officers and NCOs, and the complete lack of fear or hostility expressed by Scott, James, Greer, and Riley had to be reassuring. As for the civilians, they seemed to relax slightly as well. That might change in a moment once they actually saw his wings, but maybe… maybe they would take this unveiling as the good faith gesture it really was, and he would be able to regain a measure of their trust.

He didn't want to do it, though. Oh fuck, no. He'd never willingly done this for anyone but Rush, aside from that instance in the Nakai auditorium which really didn't count. But with all those expectant faces staring up at him now, he didn't really feel like he had a choice. Even Camile was looking grudgingly intrigued.

"Okay," he said quietly. He unzipped his jacket, shrugged out of it, and stripped off his shirt. He turned his back the the room and dropped his clothes on the stair in front of him. Then he looked up.

The corners of Rush's lips curved upwards as their eyes met. This was easier. Young could let out his wings like this, with only Rush in his field of vision, and pretend that they were alone. He thought of taking Rush back to his quarters, grooming him, feeling with his own hands that his flock-mate was back and that he was safe. That would be nice. That would be a good way to end this long, exhausting, terrifying day.

The crew began to murmur again as Young's wings emerged, but now they sounded more awed or startled than afraid or angry. He wondered what TJ made of his wings. He wondered what Scott or Camile were thinking now as they saw the evidence of his otherness. He didn't peek to find out. Instead, he waited a few minutes, let everyone look their fill, and then he withdrew his wings once more. He pulled his t-shirt over his head and slipped on his jacket, drawing it out as long as he could before he finally turned around.

No one spoke immediately. None of them seemed to have any idea what to say, and Young sure as hell didn't. But then Scott blew out a breath and said, "That's… pretty impressive, sir."

There was a ripple of uncertain laughter through the crowd. A few people smiled. Others looked thoughtful. There were still some who looked suspicious and resentful, but they seemed to be outnumbered at the moment. Maybe they weren't on the verge of mutiny. Maybe they just needed time to process, and then they would be able to accept the presence of angels on their ship and move on.

Or maybe most of them were just intimidated into silence. Young was feeling so cowed himself that he was almost surprised to hear the quaver of fear in Dr. Fisher's voice when she spoke up suddenly, "Is it true that you killed most of the aliens yourself?"

He didn't feel equal to soothing her apparent nervousness, so he said dryly, "I'm happy to be able to tell you that most of the aliens are still alive. "We only killed the ones that were trying to hurt us."

Above him, Rush snorted appreciatively.

"Look," Young continued, "I know there's still a lot that needs to be discussed. Many of you still have questions and concerns. I get that. All of them will be addressed in time. Right now, I'm going to use the stones to report in. Whatever decisions regarding my command result from that meeting, I'll expect everyone here to respect and abide by them. That's all I have to say for now. Dismissed."

It was a few moments before the crew as a whole got the hint and started shuffling away. Scott exchanged a nod with Young as he moved toward the door, and TJ shot him a brief, inscrutable look before she followed. Unsurprisingly, it was Camile who lingered behind.

"You can't use the stones to show General O'Neill what you just showed us," she said.

"I plan to tell him everything," Young said as calmly as he could. His patience was nearing the snapping point, but this day wasn't over yet and he had to hold himself together. "I don't think he needs to see it himself to believe it, especially once he hears eyewitness accounts from the rest of the crew."

"I'm not suggesting that he won't believe it," she said. "I'm suggesting that he won't take it seriously."

"In my experience, the general takes most things more seriously than he appears to."

"The IOA will have something to say about this, too."

"I have no doubt."

Camile narrowed her eyes at him, but then she nodded reluctantly. "All right. But this isn't over. We need to talk about this."

"Agreed," Young said. "Later."

She nodded again, lips pressed into a firm line. She glanced up briefly at Rush as if to say, _Yes, you're in trouble too_ , and then she stalked off.

Once they had the gate room to themselves, Rush pushed himself away from the railing and made his way down the stairs. When he had reached the bottom, he swung around and looked up at Young with a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

"I know what you want," Young told him. He descended the few steps that separated them and reached out to nudge a few of Rush's untidy feathers into place. "Let me get my meeting out of the way first, okay?"

Rush leaned into the touch and grumbled wordlessly.

"Yeah, I know," Young said bleakly, thinking of the last hurdle facing him before he could finally relax a little. He would so much rather just skip it. "I know."


	6. Communion

General O'Neill let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair. "Angels, Everett?"

Young clasped his hands more tightly behind his back and stood just a tad straighter to mask his desire to fidget. Hearing the word 'angels' come out of O'Neill's mouth made it sound more ridiculous and impossible and terrifying than ever. That word was so completely incompatible with Young's view of himself that he had to suppress a flinch as he responded, "That's right, sir."

"Huh." O'Neill's chair slowly twisted from right to left and back again. "You know I've met a lot of gods in my time… no angels though."

Young wasn't immediately sure how to respond. There was no telling what was going through the general's mind right now. He'd sat quietly with his eyebrows raised in polite if somewhat unconvincing interest throughout Young's comprehensive report. Now that Young was done talking, O'Neill still maintained that outward calm, steeped as it was in boredom and sarcasm and understated wit. It took more than angels to impress him, evidently.

Well, that was a good thing. Young didn't want to impress him. He wanted to be trusted.

O'Neill drummed his fingers on the table and sighed again. "How long have you been with the SGC? Fifteen years?"

"Give or take," Young agreed.

"You know how useful it would've been all those years to have a gate team member with wings? I can think of a dozen instances just off the top of my head where it would've come in mighty handy."

Young tilted his head forward to hide the smile that pulled at his lips. If _that_ was the general's initial reaction to the news that he'd been commanding and coexisting with a non-human for all these years, then there was hope. "I have used them discreetly on missions before," he admitted.

"That's an impressive amount of discretion," O'Neill said dryly. "So what changed?"

Young looked down at O'Neill's desk. He didn't really know the answer to that question. Rush wasn't the first friend of his to ever be in mortal danger. That moment in the Nakai sanctuary hadn't been the first time Young had face overwhelming odds, either. What _had_ changed? What had come over him in that instant, wiping out all his fears and turning him into a person he didn't even recognize? It had been useful, certainly. He couldn't bring himself to regret it, even though it would inevitably complicate his life in ways he hadn't even imagined yet. Rush and Chloe were safe, and Young was no longer in hiding. It was all for the best, perhaps.

"Maybe it was just time," he said.

O'Neill grunted and rubbed at his forehead. "This is going to generate a mountain of paperwork. And you just know the IOA is going to be at my throat."

"They'll want me to step down."

O'Neill's brief, humorless smirk said they'd want a lot more than that, but he nodded. "Yeah." His expression suddenly turned serious and he met Young's eyes squarely. "Do you feel like you should step down, Colonel?"

Young drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly to steady himself. He still had his doubts. Something was happening to him. Something deep inside of him was welling up to the surface, and he wasn't sure whether he wanted to find out what it meant or bury it back down under shovelfuls of denial. He had a feeling it was too late for that anyway. The question was, how much was it going to interfere with his ability to command Destiny's crew? Maybe stepping down was the right thing to do. It was certainly the _easiest_ thing to do. But in Young's bitter experience, the easy options were typically the wrong ones. Besides, it would be better for Rush if Young remained in command. If there was a question of Young's fitness as a leader, then Rush's position would be in jeopardy also.

"No sir," Young answered.

"Then you'd better get back there," O'Neill said. "You've got your work cut out for you."

Young nodded. God, he knew it.

"I've got your back on this end," O'Neill continued, "at least for now. But Everett?"

"Yes sir?"

"No more secrets. You're gonna need to be an open book from this point on. Extraterrestrials in the SGC, that's not a new thing. We can work with that, as long as you're not hiding anything else." O'Neill tilted his head to one side and shot him a pointed look. "You're not hiding anything else, right Colonel?"

Young thought of blackened wings, a dark pit, and a taunting voice in the wind. He met O'Neill's gaze and said firmly, "No sir."

 

* * *

 

Young had said very little since his return from Earth, which was just fine with Rush. They were sitting in Young's quarters, Rush on the coffee table and Young on the couch behind him, and the silence between them was comfortable rather than awkward.  Young had applied himself to the task of grooming Rush as if he were a starving man and Rush's wings were a feast. Even now that Rush's feathers were in perfect order again, Young didn't seem able to stop petting them. That was fine with Rush, too. Not that he wasn't willing to trade places and tend to his flock-mate's needs, but if Young wanted to keep sitting there stroking his feathers all night, Rush wasn't going to complain. This was as close to true peace as he ever came.

Young sighed softly, and his warm breath ghosted over the back of Rush's neck. Under any other circumstances, Rush would be pulling away, anxious and defensive in reaction to such close proximity with another person. Strange, how easy this was, how easy it had always been with Young - at least within the context of grooming. But maybe it wasn't strange at all. Maybe from the first brush of Young's fingers through his plumage, Rush had subconsciously recognized Michael's touch. Michael's hands had been strong and steady and gentle in just the same way as Young's. He had only groomed Rush one time, just before their journey together, but Rush remembered exactly what it felt like. It felt like friendship and security. It felt like this.

When Young finally withdrew his deft fingers from his wings, Rush hummed softly, half in regret and half in gratitude. Time to return the favor, then. But then Young spoke in a low, rasping voice and Rush forgot all about grooming. "Why did you call me Michael?"

Rush went completely still. _Oh_ , he thought as his pleasantly sluggish mental processes snapped back to their usual crisp efficiency, _he knows_.

Admittedly, there was nothing in the question itself to give that impression. It could be the question of a jealous man wondering why another was preferred over him. It could be the question of a concerned friend worried about his companion's mental state. But it wasn't either of those things, because it wasn't really a question at all. It sounded more like a plea.

Rush slowly looked back at Young over his shoulder. As usual, Young's face gave little away, but his hazel eyes lacked their customary directness. They were a bit wild, undeniably haunted, and they failed to meet Rush's gaze.

 _He knows, and he's afraid_.

Rush had limited knowledge of what lay in Michael's past, and he had no idea what might have caused his fall. But he did remember clearly that all had not been well with the archangel in their last few meetings. Michael had been starting to crack under the strain of his command. He'd lost too many friends and had been forced to sit idle while too many innocents died. Rush remembered entering names into the _Book of the Dead_ \- twenty-three thousand names on a single day for the realm of Ilsaira alone, and how many more races had Michael seen fight for survival only to die out, helpless and friendless, while he could do nothing to help?

Countless ages before Rush came into existence, the Host had been under the command of Lucifer. The position had sent her mad, and she'd led her forces in an attack on the Sovereign's palace. In her insanity, she even challenged the Sovereign to single combat, but when her Lord stepped out to meet her, she threw herself at their feet and begged to be put out of her misery. The Sovereign stripped her of her powers and memories and sent her to Earth. Whether this constituted a mercy or a punishment had been the subject of heated debate among the other angels for millennia, but rumor had it that Lucifer, at least, was happy in her state of perpetual ignorance.

Had the same thing happened to Michael? If so, recovering the memories that the Sovereign had removed from him might be legitimate cause for fear. Perhaps it would even bring on the same madness that had been Lucifer's downfall. Maybe it would be better, then, if Young's question went unanswered. Because even though it was clear that the colonel was working his way to the truth on his own, Rush didn't have to help him. Rush could use his aphasia as an excuse to say nothing now, and that would give him ample time to come up with a plausible lie. If Young was as scared of his past as he sounded, it wouldn't take much effort to make him swallow a few comforting falsehoods about himself, and then everything could go back to normal. Young wouldn't lose his mind, and Rush could secretly enjoy the knowledge that the two best friends he'd ever had were one and the same person.

"Rush," Young murmured, "I need to make sense of this. I gotta understand it. I think I'll go crazy if I don't."

Well, that would certainly defeat the purpose of lying to him. Fine. They would have this conversation after all. But Rush wasn't above filling Young's head with misinformation if it ended up looking like the safest option.

Rush heaved a sigh and rose to his feet. He reached into his pocket for the two Nakai mind-reading devices, and then he plopped back down on the coffee table, this time facing Young. He held out the receiver. Young hesitated, staring at it with lowered brows and a dangerous glint in his eyes.

"I don't think so."

Rush tilted his head and looked at him pointedly, one eyebrow raised.

"No," Young said, his voice growing tight. "I can't believe you even brought those with you. Didn't the Nakai use them to _torture_ you?"

Rush shrugged. That was completely beside the point. Why blame a piece of technology for the cruelties of its creators? Tech wasn't evil. It simply was.

"I was thinking we could use good, old-fashioned pen and paper," Young grumbled.

Oh no, not for this conversation. Not for something that was going to require delicacy and precision. Rush shook his head and reached out for Young's hand. He drew it forward by the wrist and pressed the receiver into Young's palm, closing his fingers around it. Then, before Young could protest further, Rush raised the transmitter to his own forehead and pressed it into place. A brief jolt of pain shot through his skull - damn it, that was always worse than he remembered - but he managed to keep his expression neutral. He didn't think Young had picked up on his momentary discomfort, fortunately.

Young's expression shifted subtly, betraying fleeting hints of nervousness and distaste, but he gave a brief nod of capitulation. He lifted the receiver to his own forehead, and the link between their minds snapped suddenly into existence.

Oh, this was different. Rush had _known_ it would be different, but he hadn't guessed how much so. There was no pressure on his mind, no sense of claws scrabbling to get past his barriers. No pain now, just possibilities. Young's presence hovered in the background, waiting for Rush to make the first move. To be invited to share information, not having it taken from him by force, was refreshing. He felt a sudden rush of affection for his flock-mate. This was just what Rush had needed to temper his memories of violation and torture. It might save him a few nightmares, at the very least.

"Oh," Young breathed, his eyes going wide. "R-Rush…"

Rush realized that a bit of his warm fondness for Young had escaped the confines of his mental walls. For a moment Young seemed one the verge of tears, but he swallowed and took a deep breath.

"That's… intense."

Rush laughed under his breath. Was Young really so startled and moved just by the knowledge that Rush liked him? After all they had been through? What a ridiculous man he was.

He concentrated, collecting his thoughts into a manageable packet that would communicate only what he wanted to divulge and no more. It consisted of flashing images, remembered sounds, hazy impressions, and layered emotions. It wasn't like speaking in words - not really, even though the effect was similar. It was an improvement upon mere words, because it was pure, unadulterated meaning.

_Better than pen and paper, don't you think?_

Young sucked in a breath and his eyelids flickered. "Uh… Learning curve's a bit steeper, I'd say."

 _You seem to be doing all right with it,_ Rush replied, intrigued by Young's reaction. He wondered what this felt like from his end. In theory, the devices were supposed to create a one-way connection, but Rush had already proved during his own interrogation that the person on the receiving end wasn't completely invulnerable to psychic attacks from the person wearing the transmitter. Still, even though he'd managed to glean bits and pieces of information his tormentors hadn't meant to let slip, he still didn't know what it was like to feel the uninterrupted flow of data from another's mind. Evidently, it was rather overwhelming at first.

Young shook his head slowly. "I have no idea," he said in a vague tone, as if he couldn't quite collect enough of his wits to pay attention to what he was saying. "This is…" His voice trailed off.

Rush's emotions were still slipping through the cracks in his defenses, and that must be what had Young so distracted. Young was hanging back, making no effort to read any thoughts that Rush wasn't deliberately feeding him, but those pesky feelings kept on flowing. _Friend. Safe. Happy. Home._ The satisfaction and contentment rolled like waves across the distance that separated their minds.

_Sorry about that. This wasn't a problem with the Nakai._

Young huffed out a laugh. "What, you didn't radiate contempt at them? I find that hard to believe. You don't even need a mental link to do that."

 _True_ , Rush acknowledged, pleased to note that Young's dry humor was still intact. He was okay, then. Just processing in his usual slow, deliberate way.

"This isn't hurting you?"

 _Don't push into my mind, and I'll be fine_ , Rush assured him. _The Nakai wanted to inflict pain. You feel nothing like them._

"Well, that's comforting."

_What is it like for you? I've never worn the receiver._

Young closed his eyes. His brow creased in concentration, and Rush could practically hear the grinding of gears in the man's head as he formulated a reply. Rush experienced a little thrill of warm amusement, and Young drew in a sharp breath. "I can feel that. I can… Why are you laughing at me?"

_I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't made a sound._

Young opened his eyes and shot him an unimpressed look. "Uh huh."

_You were saying?_

Young looked down at his hands, which were folded in his lap. "I don't think I can describe it," he said quietly. "I've never seen this side of you."

_Well, I'm not usually quite this… buoyant._

Young laughed and glanced up. "I like it."

Their eyes met. Rush couldn't suppress his smile, even if he was feeling just a touch exposed at the moment. Young bared his teeth in an answering grin. Fierce and fond, dangerous and benevolent. How had Rush not realized that this man was Michael all along?

Young's smile faded first. He looked away, reaching up to scratch his neck in sudden awkwardness. "You haven't answered my question yet," he said, as if he'd somehow picked up on Rush's train of thought.

Right. That question. That dangerous, potentially madness-inducing question. He'd almost forgotten about that in his appreciation of Young's bumbling charm, but now his queasy sense of foreboding rose to the surface again.

"Whoa," Young said sharply, "Rush?"

Oh, lovely. Young could feel the shift in his mood. Of course he could.

 _I'm okay_.

"You don't want to tell me. Jesus, is it that bad?"

 _No! I mean, I don't know_ , Rush told him, growing slightly flustered. This wasn't how he'd planned for their conversation to go. He hadn't meant to get so caught up in his mental link with his flock-mate that he forgot to be on his guard. And now Young was looking at him with worlds of doubt and fear in his eyes, and Rush didn't know how to respond to that. He wanted to reach across their connection and pour reassurances into Young's mind until the smile returned to his lips, but he didn't even know how. The one thing he clearly couldn't do now was lie, though. His emotions were quite the tell, and even if he found some way to bottle them up and stop freely transmitting them to Young, that alone would give him away. Maybe he should remove the transmitter and end the conversation - that might be the safest thing at this point. But wouldn't that just send a message to Young that the truth was too horrible to be spoken?

Gradually, the turmoil in Young's eyes was replaced by a grim kind of acceptance. "It's okay," he said quietly. "Rush, you don't have to tell me anything if it upsets you that much."

Oh, no. Somehow that made everything _worse_.

 _I don't know anything_ , Rush admitted. _I know who you are, that's all._

"Michael."

Rush closed his eyes and nodded. _I don't know why you're here. I don't know what's in your past. I only met you four times._

"How long have you known?"

_I only realized it when you attacked the Nakai. Your sword is very recognizable. And your halo, your fire, your eyes, your very presence... There was no mistaking you._

He opened his eyes to find Young staring off into space. His expression was stony - he had shut Rush out and retreated deep into his own head. Rush wanted to pull off the transmitter and do the same, because this conversation was giving him a strange, aching sensation in his chest, and he wanted to put it out of his mind and get some work done instead. But what would happen to Young if he left the discussion hanging? Would he try to uncover the knowledge he wanted from his own mind? Would he be successful?

No point worrying about that. No point worrying at all, because Young could feel his fear and it couldn't be doing him any good. Rush took a deep breath and let it out slowly to steady his heart rate. Then he summoned his memory of the first time he had ever seen Michael. He recalled the way he had been dazzled by the archangel's golden beauty, angered by his casual arrogance, and intrigued against his will by his gentle implacability. He focused on those emotions, softened and sweetened by hindsight, and then he sent the memory to Young.

Young stirred, frowned, and blinked rapidly. "What?"

 _Our first meeting_.

"I… can see that," Young murmured. There was a pause as he processed the memory, maintaining his confused frown the whole time. Then he turned troubled, questioning eyes toward Rush. "I was an asshole."

Rush burst out laughing.

"I was! You actually _liked_ me back then?"

Rush shook his head, grinning. Relief flowed through him along with a sort of crowing delight. He never would have gotten such an admission from the old Michael, so steeped in the traditional angel hierarchy as he was. But Young, for all that he was military and therefore had a few faulty ideas about authority, would never make the mistake of judging anyone by social standing alone.

Young's expression began to lighten, even though he still looked bewildered. The steady stream of positive emotions from Rush probably helped. "Was that supposed to make me feel better?"

_Oh, you weren't so bad. Granted, I hated you then, but you were just a product of your culture._

"If you hated me, why does this feel like a treasured memory?"

_Because I didn't always hate you._

"Good to know," Young muttered. His eyes had turned distant again, and he pressed his lips together into a firm line. His fingers twitched together in his lap. He looked like he was trying to puzzle something out, or as if an unwelcome thought had occurred to him.

_What is it?_

Young glanced back at him. "I called you 'Fledgling.'"

Rush experienced a flare of happiness at the sound of that endearment on Young's lips. It had been so long since he'd last heard it, and it was more welcome than he would have guessed. How many times had imagined Michael, golden and glorious and yet somehow mild and approachable, looking at him with his kind eyes and calling him 'Fledgling?' How many times had that thought recurred during the worst moments of his life, giving him the strength he needed to push through the pain and the fear and the insanity? It had always been his flicker of hope in his darkest hours. And maybe this wasn't quite his fantasy, but it was another kind of joy: more familiar, more comfortable, less childish. He would take it.

Young's eyes widened as he picked up on Rush's reaction. His brows went up and his lips parted, and for a moment the air between them seemed alive with currents of energy and crackling possibilities. "That's important to you," he said so softly that the words were little more than a gentle rumble.

Rush found himself wanting to lean forward, shorten the distance between them, but as he didn't quite understand where that impulse was coming from, he held back. _It was the only name I had for most of my life, so yes. Very important._

"Did everyone call you that?"

Rush shook his head. _Only you._

Young huffed and nodded slowly. "I see. That explains a few things."

_Such as?_

"The other Rush - the little one," Young said, dropping his eyes down to his hands. "I called him that. I didn't know why at the time. It just slipped out."

An abrupt surge of jealous irritation from Rush made Young lift his head again in surprise. Rush tried to tamp down on the emotion - he hated being so transparent - but damn it, that little bastard had _known_ , and he hadn't let on. Rush knew he never should have let him come aboard and spend time alone with Young in the first place. That smug little snake. Fuck him.

"I, um… I'm sorry?" Young said, and the genuine contrition in his tone was disarming.

_Why haven't you ever mentioned this before?_

Young leaned back and rubbed at his face before letting his hand drop into his lap. "I'm not sure. I thought...I _knew_ it had something to do with my past. It was a word that came naturally to me, yet I could have sworn I never said it before in my life. It meant something important to him, but he wouldn't tell me, and I thought maybe…"

_It was better not to know._

"Yeah," Young sighed. "Maybe it still is."

 _And yet you were the one who said you'd go crazy if you didn't know_ , Rush reminded him.

Young hunched his shoulders. It was an unusually defensive pose for him, a display of vulnerability that Rush wasn't quite comfortable with. But Young's gaze was steady as he met Rush's eyes, and the prickle of misgiving under Rush's skin dissipated.

"I'm not going to shut my eyes against what's right in front of me, no matter how much I want to. What kind of commander would that make me?"

A sane one, possibly, but not an effective one. Not what this ship needed. Not what this _crew_ needed. Rush nodded in agreement. _Do you want to see the rest of my memories of you?_

"Yeah, I think that would be best," Young said. "But tomorrow. Neither of us have slept in two days. I've about hit my limit, and you must be ready to drop."

Sleep. Right. That was about the last thing Rush wanted to do. He thought of going back to his quarters, lying in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, and trying not to remember what had happened to him the last time he'd been flat on his back. He thought of the nightmares that had come whenever his captors had let him sleep, and how they had been almost worse than reality. No, he'd much rather stay right here where he felt safe, thank you very much. Failing that, he'd probably head to the control interface room and bury himself in work until he could no longer see the phantom flickers of blue at the edges of his vision.

His emotions must have given him away, because Young's expression changed minutely from weariness to grimness to a more gentle understanding. "You don't have to go," he said. "I can sleep here on the couch. Or the bed's big enough if you don't mind--"

 _I don't mind_ , Rush said hastily. He wasn't about to pass up that offer. It would be okay with Young - with _Michael_ \- at his side. Even if the nightmares came, he wouldn't have to wake up alone. That made a difference.

He reached up to the transmitter on his forehead, preparing to pry it off, but Young caught his wrist to hold him back. "No point taking it off now, is there?"

_I don't think you want my dreams in your head._

"Leave it on," Young said. "It might help. Not being alone, I mean."

Rush swallowed and nodded, moved by what was undoubtedly a sacrifice on Young's part. Young probably didn't know what he was letting himself in for, but again, Rush wasn't about to argue with him. It _would_ help.

 _Thank you_.

"I'm just… I'm glad you're here," Young said, awkward in his earnestness.

 _Believe me,_ Rush assured him with a small, fond smile tugging at his lips, _so am I._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated, and be sure to visit me on [Tumblr](http://seekingidlewild.tumblr.com/) for writing updates and general fandom squeeing.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Maybe a reminder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4240713) by [Yoyi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yoyi/pseuds/Yoyi)




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